Photo: Screenshot / Unsplash / RNZ
The current fuel crisis doesn’t seem to be diminishing Kiwis love affair with utes, but it is changing the nature of the relationship.
Figures released this week show sales of new light commercial vehicles in March were up 48 percent compared to the same month last year, with many purchasers looking at greener ute options.
Warren Willmot is New Zealand brand manager for BYD, a chinese manufacturer who specialise in EVs. He said BYD New Zealand normally sell 300 to 400 vehicles a month. In March they sold 866 vehicles, their entire New Zealand stock. “That wiped out our supply” he said “Every car we’ve got arriving in April and May is currently spoken for”.
Those sales included BYD’s plug in hybrid ute, the Shark 6.
BYD isn’t the only company experiencing a rush on EV utes. The Geely Riddara RD6 is the only fully electric ute currently on offer in New Zealand. They normally sell 10 a month, in March they sold 46 and had 25 pre-orders. Nordeast group GM Dane Fisher, who distribute the Geely Riddara, says the volume of sales took them by surprise.
But of the EV utes sold in March, the top seller wasn’t fully electric, or even a plug in. It was the hybrid variant of the Toyota Hilux. According to Brad Olsen of Infometrics the Hilux hybrid usually sells around 200 units per month. In March it was close to a thousand.
The US attack on Iran started right at the end of February, spiking fuel prices, so it’s not hard to explain the March surge in EV ute sales. Olsen believes some businesses are taking a long term view with their vehicle purchases, hoping the “bigger upfront investment” will pay itself off over time.
And while times are tight, Olsen said there has been a recent strengthening in light commercial registrations.
“The primary sector is still doing well. There’s clearly good payout for dairy and meat and horticulture, as well as that, you’ve got the Fonterra Capital divestment payment that’s emerging too. So there’s still a lot of money coming through for the primary sector”.
According to Fisher demand for Electric vehicles was already returning before the Middle East hostilites. He believes the fuel price increase created a tipping point for people considering buying an EV.
“The barriers to entry were at the lowest it’s been for years. That’s predominantly around range anxiety, charging infrastructure and affordability, and the likelihood to have an EV next was at the highest point. So that was just below the surface.”
Willmott believed it isn’t just the price of fuel driving new car purchases, it’s anxiety around supply.
“Most of the retail customers, when I’m talking to them, it’s not about the cost of the gas” he said. “It’s about the potential for there to be no gas or for the government to say, hey, you can’t drive your car on these certain days.”
With Ford, Toyota, GMW, Geely and BYD now all offering some variation of EV ute in the New Zealand market there are now plenty of options aside from standard internal combustion offerings.
“If you want to get a cheaper option but still get some decent running costs advantages there are ones on the market for you” said Olsen. “If you’re looking for something a bit more expensive but it’s got a lot more pull, a lot more torque, a lot more whatever else you need, you’ve got that as well, and particularly at a slightly higher price point, but it’s available.
“You can do more of a like-for-like placement these days compared to say five years ago when the options weren’t around quite as much.”
But with prices ranging from around 55 to 95 thousand dollars you’ll still need relatively deep pockets.
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