Strong EV, hybrid sales in April as new car market booms

Sales of EVs continue to remain strong in line with a new car market that hit new highs in April.

Compared with the disastrous results from April 2020 – when Australia was in the grip of Covid lockdowns that threw the broader economy into disarray – the market’s 137 percent boom is a welcome relief.

But as Australian state governments start talking of incentives to increase the uptake of EVs – Victoria is offering $3000 subsidies and NSW has flagged stamp duty concessions and other incentives – there’s also significant percentage growth in zero emissions vehicles.

While the top-selling EV brand of 2020, Tesla, doesn’t report sales figures, sales of all other EVs topped 286 units, slightly shy of the 411-car record set in March.

Blame that partially on the Porsche Taycan. Pent up demand for Porsche’s first EV saw an astonishing 161 listed as sold in March, a figure that dropped to 48 in April.

Still, that made the Taycan the top-selling luxury EV, outselling the Mercedes-Benz EQC (36 sales), Audi e-Tron (10), Jaguar I-Pace (just one car) and BMW i3 (also just one car).

While that’s a healthy number by EV standards in Australia, it’s still pitifully low on a global scale; just 0.31 percent of the 92,347 cars sold in April was for full battery electric vehicles.

Even assuming healthy sales for Tesla – which recently introduced the cheaper Chinese-made Model 3 – there’s still in excess of 99 percent of new cars being sold using petrol or diesel.

Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries chief executive Tony Weber said the strong April result across the industry was due to consumer confidence across the economy as Australia continues to contain the virus.

“New vehicles sales are a direct reflection of the performance of the broader economy in terms of consumer and business confidence,” said Weber said.

“This time last year we were seeing significant impacts from COVID-19 with less customer activity and inquiries to dealerships.”

While EV sales are growing, hybrid sales continue to boom, led by Toyota.

Sales of petrol-electric models accounted for 7583 vehicles – 4919 of them SUVs – while plug-in hybrids accounted for 248 sales.

In the first four months of 2021 Australians have bought 1255 electric cars, 877 PHEVs and 23,711 regular hybrids.

All of which bodes well for the remainder of the year, with the FCAI forecasting strong sales.

“Historically the April result is between 70,000 and 80,000 vehicles, so the 2021 result is very significant,” said Weber.

“This sales trend is expected to continue as we enter the final two months of the financial year.”

With more EVs coming over the next six months – including the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Mazda MX-30, Kia Niro and Audi e-Tron GT – there’s little doubt 2021 will set a new sales record for EVs.