VFACTS January: Tesla Model 3 third in market

The 2023 Tesla Model 3 has become the first electric car to take a podium position among Australia’s most popular new vehicles, placing third on the January sales charts behind the dominant Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux utes.

Finishing ahead of all SUVs and every other passenger car last month, the Tesla Model 3 premium mid-size electric sedan recorded 2927 sales and helped the US brand to a top-10 position with 3313 sales overall, placing ninth.

It delivered only 386 examples of the highly-sought-after Tesla Model Y SUV in January, which reflects the vagaries of shipping schedules and supply to the Australian market for all brands – not just Tesla.

So, yes, the first month of trading in the new year doesn’t set into concrete the ongoing performance of any brand or individual model.

However, it does underscore the popularity of Tesla’s electric cars alongside rampant demand and long-awaited deliveries of the new Ford Ranger and the sheer resilience of the market-leading Toyota HiLux, which has also been subject to chronic stock shortages. 

The Ranger racked up 4749 sales last month compared to 4131 for HiLux, combining with the related new Ford Everest SUV (1230) to send Ford to third position overall with 6624 sales – up 46.3 per cent compared to January 2022.

Toyota held its accustomed leadership position with 13,363 sales overall, but this was down 12.8 per cent compared to the corresponding month last year and, most notably, its market share was reduced to 15.7 per cent – well down on the 20-plus-per-cent stranglehold the Japanese brand typically commands.

Mazda was comfortably second on 9407 sales – aided by the CX-3 (2417) and CX-5 (2189), which were the top-selling SUVs, outperforming the Toyota RAV4 (1958) – while Kia and Hyundai rounded out the top five with 6006 and 5809 sales respectively.

Kia is maintaining the upper hand after finishing in third position overall in 2022, having overtaken Hyundai for the first time in a calendar year. Each brand’s mid-size SUV was their number-one seller last month – Sportage (1517) for Kia, and Tucson for Hyundai (1615).

Further down the field, Mitsubishi took sixth position in January with 5276 sales – ably assisted by the Outlander SUV (1674) – while MG was seventh on 4015 units, finding plenty of takers for its ZS SUV (1842) and MG 3 city car (1348).

Subaru managed eighth position with 3601 sales, largely made up of Foresters (1370), while Isuzu Ute finished 10th behind Tesla on 2671 units, split between the D-MAX ute (1843) and MU-X SUV (828).

That left a number of big-name brands outside the top 10, including Volkswagen (2542) and Nissan (2448) in 11th and 13th respectively. Splitting them was Chinese brand GWM/Haval on 2503.

Positive signs for the market

In total, Australia’s car industry delivered 84,873 vehicles last month, which is the strongest result since January 2018 (88,551).

January sales plummeted to 71,731 units in 2020 during the pandemic, and were still less than 76,000 in 2022, so the latest figures represent a welcome improvement amid ongoing vehicle supply shortages and increasingly tough economic conditions.

FCAI chief executive Tony Weber said “this data is the best January result since 2018 and shows that the industry is continuing to recover following years of supply chain disruption and delay”. 

SUVs made up 55 per cent of all new vehicles sold last month (46,698), and light commercial vehicles 22 per cent (18,546), accounting for 77 per cent combined.

Medium SUVs led the way (17,648), while utes were not far behind (16,318).

There were 4852 electric vehicle sales recorded last month – Tesla making up 68 per cent of those – which represents 5.7 per cent of the total market.

In comparison, there were 5136 hybrid car sales, 438 plug-in hybrids, 26,589 diesel-powered cars and 44,831 petrol-engined cars. Growth was recorded across all powertrain types.