SUVs and light trucks keep NZ sales humming along

March 4, 2016 by Alastair Sloane

Passenger cars numbers in February — Top 15 passenger cars in February

Registrations of SUVs and light trucks in New Zealand continue to dominate a new vehicle market that shows no signs of slowing down.

The best-selling passenger cars in February were SUVs and the best-selling vehicles overall were light trucks.

The Kia Sportage (above) and Mazda CX-3 topped the monthly car segment with sales of 236 units each, and the Ford Ranger (582), Toyota Hilux (444) and Mitsubishi Triton (289) utes headed the field.

After the first two months of 2016 the Ranger leads the annual sales race with 1243 units, almost 300 ahead of second-placed Toyota Corolla.

Light commercials in February — Top 15 light commercials in February

February sales of commercial vehicles were up 10.6 per cent (300) on the same month last year. Passenger cars were up almost 2 per cent (136).

Motor Industry Association CEO David Crawford said new vehicle sales this year were already up 3 per cent (662 units) on the same two months last year.

“Strong net immigration, a healthy tourism sector and a competitive market are helping to drive sales,” he said.

“The anticipated slowdown in new vehicle registrations has yet to materialise as businesses and consumers continued to buy new vehicles at unprecedented rates.”

February sales of 10,313 units were made up of 7192 passenger cars and 3121 commercials, the strongest February since 1984. There were 22,199 new vehicles registered in January and February.

The top 15 passenger cars in January and February accounted for 6261 out of the 16,084 registered. Of those 6261, 53 per cent (3314) were SUVs.

Top 15 passenger cars so far this year — Top 15 passenger cars this year

Top 15 light commercials this year

If you are in a position to shell out upwards of NZ$600,000 for the 60^thanniversary Porsche 911 S/T or optional Porsche 911 S/T Heritage, you’ll no doubt want the signature titanium watch that goes with it. That’s how Porsche figures it anyway. Or, if you want the watch you’ll need to get the car. Both the car and the watch are limited to 1963 units, the year the original 911 model broke cover. The watch – Chronograph 1 911 S/T and Chronograph 1 911 S/T Heritage – and the car carry matching edition numbers. The watch is priced at $US13,500, or around $NZ22,200. The car, says Porsche NZ, starts at $NZ608,000. A “strictly limited number” will go into production for NZ early next year.

Eight European Union countries are pushing to weaken new EU emissions limits for cars, saying they are overly ambitious and unrealistic for carmakers to hit. The eight countries – France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – said in a joint paper that parts of the proposed Euro 7 regulation, including curbs on exhaust pipe emissions, should be scrapped entirely. They said the limits would force carmakers to invest in improving exhaust emissions performance, money which would be better spent on developing zero-emission vehicles. Taken together, the countries would have enough votes to block the proposal.

A go-anywhere EV concept for the US military uses an onboard 12kW diesel generator to top up the batteries on the move. The all-wheel-drive has 800-volt technology and a 200kWh battery pack to power three electric motors, two in the rear and one up front. Claimed output is 745kW/15,590Nm, or 1000hp and 11,500 ft-lb of torque. The four-seater was developed by the defence division of General Motors and is based on the platform of the Hummer SUV. It rides on Fox performance shock absorbers and 37-inch tyres and comes with “exceptional” approach and departure angles for off-road mobility. Maximum range using the generator to keep things ticking over is said to be around 500km.

The outside temperature in Midland, Texas, was 40.5C when staff at the local office of the US National Weather Service set out to show the cabin of a closed car can literally get baking hot in summer. They mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and laid them on the car’s dashboard – the surface of which showed a temperature of 87.7C. A little over four hours later the cookies were ready to eat. “Even though ours weren’t golden brown, we can confirm that they are done and delicious,” the staff wrote on Facebook.