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After a brutal month for new car sales, the Motor Industry Association (MIA) is asking the government to play a “decisive role” in starting the new vehicle sector as the country moves to the Level 2 of the coronavirus blockade.
According to the MIA, April 2020 registrations decreased 90 percent compared to the same month last year, with 1,039 new vehicles registered compared to 10,640 registrations in April 2019.
This is not unexpected, but it is a major blow to an industry that was already facing a decline in sales this year after several years of growth.
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The Kia Seltos was the best-selling car in April this year.
“The month of April was closed for businesses other than supplying essential vehicles and 3 business days at the end of the month for contactless sales,” said MIA CEO David Crawford.
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“That distributors have been able to sell as many as they did is a testament to their determination to partially reopen their businesses while maintaining strict health and safety processes.
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David Crawford, executive director of the Motor Industry Association says the drop was not unexpected.
“To date, the market has fallen nearly 32 percent (15,676 units) in the same period in 2019.”
With records of only 707 passenger and SUV vehicles recorded in April 2020, sales decreased 89.6 percent (6,071 units) in 2019 volumes, while commercial vehicles were further impacted, 91, 4 percent (3,530 units) compared to 2019.
There was some small good news for Kia that leaped into the lead of the sales race with a 16 percent share of April’s small market. With 169 units sold, Kia was followed by Toyota with 13 percent (132 units) and Suzuki in third place with a market share of 10 percent (102 units).
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The Hilux was the best-selling ute under close, followed by the Holden Colorado.
The best-selling models of the month were the Kia Seltos (95 units), followed by the Toyota Hilux (59 units) with the Holden Colorado in third place (38 units).
The MIA says the government can play a decisive role in reducing the economic pain for the industry and is calling for a number of policies to be accelerated, including accelerating the uptake of plug-in vehicles across the government fleet.
The agency says that to date “the uptake of plug-in vehicles by government agencies has been less than modest at best” and calls on the government to increase budgets to allow departments to increase their uptake of BEVs and PHEV.
Before the pandemic, the MIA supported in principle the adoption of a rate reduction scheme, but is now backing down, saying that given the “degree of fiscal impact that the pandemic is causing, we believe this policy needs immediate review. It is Our view is that the government should defer the introduction of a rate reduction scheme and instead provide incentives for fuel-efficient vehicles, which will be reviewed in 2023. “
MIA is also calling for the introduction of a vehicle scrapping scheme, saying, “We all know that we have an old fleet with numerous polluting and unsafe cars that roam our roads.
“We believe it is time for the government to provide financial incentives to remove vehicles that are over 20 years old and / or where their exhaust emission standards are equivalent to three euros or less.
“This would also be in line with the new road safety strategy and the government’s climate change objectives.”
