{"id":666804,"date":"2026-05-12T21:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666804\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T21:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:30:14","slug":"big-utes-remain-popular-for-australians-in-march-and-april-despite-rising-fuel-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666804\/","title":{"rendered":"Big utes remain popular for Australians in March and April despite rising fuel costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Large utility vehicles have remained a popular choice for Australians despite increasing fuel prices through March and April, while the market share of electric vehicles has increased to 16 per cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fuel prices reached a national average peak of 319 cents per litre for diesel and 224.5 cents per litre for petrol on the week ending April 12, according to the Australian Institute of Petroleum.<\/p>\n

Prices have since been trending downward, with the national average for diesel being 247.2 cents per litre and petrol 183.6 cents per litre on the week ending May 10.<\/p>\n

According to data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), sales of 4X4 utes have decreased to 13,251 compared to 15,672 in April last year.<\/p>\n

However, 4X2 sales have slightly increased to 1,775 in April this year from 1,719 in April last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sales of $100,000+ utes increased from 803 in February to 930 in March before declining to 560 in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said the biggest investors in new cars right now were fleet-running businesses, including governments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, he said car sales across the board had been down over the past two months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think that’s just a reflection of consumer confidence, concern about the economy, concern about the global economy,” Mr Khoury said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“So as a percentage, all petrol and diesel cars have fallen, and so it’s not a huge shock that those numbers have headed in that direction.”<\/p>\n

While the Ford Ranger, Toyota RAV4 and Toyota HiLux, three of 2025’s best sellers, have remained popular with buyers, the general top 10 has started to change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hybrid car Haval Jolion and electric vehicle BYD Sealion 7 have jumped in popularity compared to the same time last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Large vehicle stronghold<\/p>\n

Mr Khoury said utes have had a stronghold in Australia for almost two decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Because they’re used by so many people, whether it’s trades, builders, farming, you see strong sales for utes generally,” he said.<\/p>\n

“If you look at the breakdown of new cars and the type of car sold, the majority is still held overwhelmingly by SUVs and new larger vehicles.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Peter Khoury says utes are popular with many different types of Australians.\u00a0 (ABC News: John Gunn)<\/p>\n

However, he said electric vehicles were growing increasingly popular, making up about one in six new car sales in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The fact that that coincides with the worst petrol prices that we’ve seen, certainly diesel prices on record, is telling,” Mr Khoury said.<\/p>\n

He said increasing variety and lowering prices were also drawing buyers towards hybrid and electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

“Two months of an oil crisis and counting, no doubt was a contributing factor,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think what that just did was that made it more attractive for Australians who were looking to buy a new car [to buy an EV].<\/p>\n

“I don’t think people went out and made that investment off the back of the oil crisis.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Large utility vehicles have remained a popular choice for Australians despite increasing fuel prices through March and April,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,321930,99,11214,82877,321931,18842,130875,260177,15927],"class_list":{"0":"post-666804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australian-chamber-of-automotive-industries","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-electric-vehicles","13":"tag-fcai","14":"tag-fiac","15":"tag-new-cars","16":"tag-nrma","17":"tag-peter-khoury","18":"tag-sales"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}