UTILITY vehicles were the new vehicle sales leaders during July,  with passenger types showing slight dip, in part because of ongoing desultory performances by electric cars.

In sharing monthly data today, the Motor Industry Association - which speaks on behalf of most new vehicle distributors - said positive performance in commercial classes kept overall registrations reasonably steady, with 11,671 vehicles plated. 

That count was 161 units down on June’s outcome, but a big uplift on May, and cumulatively resignations to date are ahead of the same period last year, when returns were well down.

Association chief executive officer Aimee Wiley says while two consecutive months of uplift is encouraging, several more months of similar sales levels are required before an improving trend can be confirmed.

“It has been a challenging 18 months for our members in tight economic conditions … there may be some early signs of

confidence returning to the new vehicle market, but it’s probably too soon to break out the champagne just yet.”

Light passenger vehicle volume, which includes market dominant sports utility models, came to 7635 units, so 610 shy of the June accrual, but this was offer by light commercials - a category including utes - accounting for 3532 registrations, against 3204 in June. Heavy commercial volume (buses and trucks) also climbed, to 504 units against 413 in June.

Toyota’s RAV4 continues to dominate the light passenger vehicle class with 602 registrations, followed by new entry the Suzuki Fronx with 347 then the Mitsubishi Outlander with 307. 

Within the ute sector, the Toyota Hilux accomplished rare one-upmanship over the Ford Ranger, which remains the overall leader year to date, with 5225 registrations against the Toyota’s 4963. 

Hilux count in July came to 868 units - making it the top choice new vehicle in July. That count was 30 more than Ranger achieved.

Next was the Nissan Navara on 416 followed by the Mitsubishi Triton, on 276. The BYD Shark 6, which looked good in June, was off the pace last month, in fifth with 256.

Electric vehicle sales did not share the overall upwards momentum, with 638 registered during the

month, compared with 1073 in June. 

In capturing a 5.5 percent share of new car registrations, EVs were down 0.5 percent on the same month last year, when they were doing poorly. 

Year to date EV volume is up, at 4552 units against 3056, but the counts are well down on when the technology was subject to rebates (which ended in 2023). There were no EVs in the July 10,

Tesla Model Y’s strong June performance did not continue into last month; having hit 407 registrations in the sixth month, it fell back to 103 in July.

Plug-in hybrids also fell back, recording 749 registrations compared with 912 in June.

Conversely, hybrid vehicles continued to do well, with 3434  registrations representing a 282 unit increase on June.