Commercial registrations and activity
Light commercials skyrocket before the fee
11 Apr 2022
Our take on the latest Commercial registrations and activity (Mon 11 Apr 2022)
New light commercial registrations up 94%pa in March
New medium commercials up 11%pa
New very heavy commercials down 4.3%pa
The key numbers...
- New light commercial registrations almost doubled in March, up 94% from March 2021, pushing new light commercial registrations in the March quarter 48%pa higher.
- There was a monthly record of 9,040 new light commercial registrations in March, which destroyed the previous record of 5,076 registrations in a month.
- New medium commercials grew 11% in March, bringing quarterly growth to 15%pa.
- New very heavy commercials edged down 4.3% in March, although they were still up 18%pa in the March quarter.
- There were 1,731 used light commercial registrations in March, resulting in growth of 252%pa.
Light commercial registrations
Annual running total, source: NZTA
...and our reaction
- The meteoric growth of light commercials is almost entirely from purchasing decisions being brought forward into March to avoid a fee on utes and other light commercial vehicles that have carbon emissions of over 192 grams per kilometre, starting on 1 April.
- The next few months will have very weak light commercial registration numbers because of the new policy and the timing of registrations.
- Looking forward, the fee will discourage some buyers in the light commercial space, especially those purchasing for personal reasons.
- For many tradespeople and people in the primary sector, the cost of the fee will have to be absorbed if they want to grow their fleet capacity, as alternative low-emissions light commercial vehicles aren’t available in New Zealand yet.
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