Aimee Wiley: Motor Industry Association on the increase in new vehicle registrations

An increase in car sales could be a sign of consumer confidence returning. 

More than 14-thousand new vehicles were registered last month – up 13.5% on October last year. 

It was the fourth consecutive month of year-on-year growth. 

Motor Industry Association Chief Executive Aimee Wiley told Mike Hosking the last few months have brought some encouraging signs. 

She says there's been a rise in private and business buyers, and a particularly large rise in rental buyers. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part of the economic turn around showing up in new
car sales data. So we've got registrations for October coming
in at fourteen two hundred and forty. Is that good? Yes,
it is. It's up over thirteen percent. Now that's the
fourth straight month of growth in a row. Amy Wyley's
the Motor Industry Association boss, and is back with this
Amy Morning, Good morning. I reckon four months is a trend,
doesn't it?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, we think it's encouraging signs.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Also, passenger or commercial or both? What's driving it?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Both passenger in commercial are both on track. Look, it's
been a challenging couple of years for the new vehicle industry,
but the last few months have bought some genuinely encouraging science.
And that's coming from across the board. So we've seen
an uplift and private buyers. We've seen an uplift and
business buyers. But the last two months in particular are
strong rental buyers.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah. I was going to say that forty six hundred
and eighteen rentals. That's tourism, isn't it. I mean you
don't buy cars for rental purposes unless you're bullish.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Do you correct? So that's confidence. That's why we think
this as the vehicle market studying is because of course
confidence returning, and we're hopeful that early signs of economic recovery.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Do you break down the numbers or have any access
to the numbers as to how people bought them? I
mean do they buy them with cash or lease or
you know whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
We don't know how they bought them, but we do
know through our members and their retail partners, how they
buy them. And that is when the OCR easing starts
to kick. And we're expecting to see an uplift too,
because that makes finance easier for people. Right, We're expecting
to see more private buyers coming to the market in
the next six to twelve months.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's interesting to see the breakdown. I mean, you've done
want to focus too much on month or month, but
I mean Petrick Ice at seventy nine hundred versus hybrid
see hybrid? Do people even know they're buying a hybrid?
Often one of those hybrids with a bit of battery
support or something like that. Do people go in looking
for that or it just happens to be a hybrid?

Speaker 2 (01:51):
No, I think people are actively looking for these and
a look hybrids are a little bit more expensive, not
a lot, but a little bit more expensive on the hule.
People are consciously buying those because of the fuel efficiency.
People are choosing smarter because it's it's thoughtful demand, not
speculative buying.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Thoughtful demand. That's an interesting way of putting it. See,
the BEVs and the plug ins just aren't working. Are
they rightly or wrongly? They're not working.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well. It's a challenge in New Zealand with evs, and
I group both BEVs and PEVs into that. Now it's
a good news story in October for PEVs, so let's
hope that trend continues. But the reason it's a bit
challenging in New Zealand compared to the rest of the
world is that we've got our charging infrastructure is one
of the worst in the OECD, and so we're rarely
reliant on those ten thousand charges coming by twenty thirty.

(02:40):
But also our geographical topography and our terrain and how
we use our vehicles. We don't have long, straight roads,
so it's more demanding. So from that point of view,
I would say that kiwis are more cautious and more
hesitant to that technology at the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Given the BEV number which isn't great, are you seeing
a note us all shifted all to this Chinese influx
of cheap, cheap bebs.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, the numbers don't show, don't show that. We can
see the Chinese bebs certainly starting to come up through
the ranks, but they're still I mean, with the exception
of BYD, which is well established in our market, they're
still not on sort of the five, the top five
or top top eight yet. But we're seeing that. Look
they're coming in, they're taking out ten percent of the market,
and they're growing. They're definitely growing, and the same trend
as happening in Australia as well, so that it's certainly

(03:30):
something to watch.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Well, it's good talk to Youami, appreciate very much, Amie Wiley.
I talk to anyone about cars. Thank you who you are.
You can ring up now and I'll give you twenty
minutes on the program just talk about cars. The SUV's, SUV,
medium's sub compacts. I mean of the fourteen thousand, about
eight or nine thousand of them are SUVs. We just
love SUVs. We cannot get enough of them. For more
from the Mike asking Breakfast. Listen live to news talks

(03:53):
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