Electric vehicle sales in Australia doubled again in January – in both the passenger car and SUV market – despite an overall year on year decline in new vehicle sales in the first month of 2022.
The latest data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries shows a 4.8% fall in new vehicle sales in January, with the greatest falls in passenger cars (down 15.3%), and heavy commercial vehicles (-10.9%).
By fuel type, it was petrol-fuelled vehicles that saw the greatest fall (-12.8%). In contrast, electric vehicle sales increased by almost 110% – without counting Tesla sales.
Excluding Tesla, which are not captured in FCAI data, 120 electric sedans were sold in January, up from 78 in the same month last year, and 500 electric SUVs were sold, up fom 213, boosted by new models not available 12 months ago.
The strong electric SUV sales are an early indicator of the potential impact this segment can make on the auto market and Australia’s transport-related carbon emissions, not to mention extremely harmful diesel particulate matter pollution.
This is also borne out in the model data we are able to glean at first glance from the latest Vfacts figures (models with the same name as their combustion engine counterparts will take more time to gather).
The caveat is of course that these are all still tiny numbers held against 75,000 car sales for the month, held back by a supply crunch stifled by the combination of a federal EV policy vacuum and global supply chain nightmares and chip shortages.
Out of eight immediately countable vehicles, four are SUV or crossover style vehicles. First on this list is the Mercedes-Benz EQA, a compact SUV priced from $76,800 that clearly hits the spot with 97 sold in January.
Its larger stablemate, the EQC saw 76 delivered to customers, while the equally premium iX saw 35 units sold.
The Ioniq 5 saw 38 delivered to customers, while the new Kia EV6 recorded 15 sales, mostly media or test drive vehicles. The Audi e-tron, which has been on the local market for some time now saw just 7 sold.
The top-of-the-price-range Porsche Taycan sold 37 in January, up from 13 a year earlier, while the newly released, relatively short range Mazda MX30 sold 43 models.
Sales data for other electric vehicles – such as Australia’s most affordable electric SUV – the MG ZS EV – which was the second best seller in 2021, or the Volvo XC40 Pure Recharge which sits in competition directly against the EQA, or the Kia Niro or Hyundia Kona were not available, because the data provided in those cases does not distinguish between full EVs, plug-in hybrids, mild hybrids or petrol versions.
We have and will reach out to Hyundai, Volvo, Mini and MG for a break down of their EV sales and will add a more detailed article when all the numbers are in.
Of other readily identifiable sales figures, sales of the Nissan Leaf fell to just 4 sales, down from 31 this time last year, while the BWM i3 fell to just 2 from 5 a year ago. There were no Jaguar I-Pace sales, down from 8 in the same month last year.
In the month of January, plug in hybrid sales for SUVs more than doubled to 283 from 126, but fell slightly to 24 from 32 in the passenger car category.
The January numbers follow a strong 2021, when the number of EV sales jumped significantly to more than 20,000 in 2021, mostly from Tesla with some 12,094 new sales, down from a previously reported number of more than 15,000 after Tesla admitted to an error in its data supplied to the Electric Vehicle Council.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.