Australians are avoiding traditional passenger cars that don’t have anything in the form of a hatchback or sedan for the first time in the top ten.
The car year 2023 will go down in history as a year in which two-wheel drive passenger cars were absent for several months of the year.
Only 16 percent of new vehicles sold in October were passenger cars with lower ground clearance, sales data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries showed.
And because Tesla was absent last month for the first time this year, there was nothing in the monthly top ten that vaguely resembled a passenger car, in hatchback or sedan form.
The Toyota Corolla and Hyundai i30 were also both omitted.
Utes took the top three, while Ford Ranger, Toyota HiLux and Isuzu D-Max topped the monthly sales chart as the millionth car was sold in 2023.
Australians for the first time eschew traditional passenger cars, none of which make the top ten (pictured is a Mazda3 in its current form – Australia’s best seller in 2011 and 2012, two generations ago)
Utes took the top three, with Ford Ranger (pictured), Toyota HiLux and Isuzu D-Max topping the monthly sales chart as the millionth car was sold in 2023.
The remaining seven spots went to a medium to large SUV or four-wheel drive, including the Toyota RAV4, Toyota LandCruiser, MG ZS, Mazda CX-5, Toyota Prado, Mitsubishi Outlander and Ford Everest.
The majority of cars sold in Australia are now SUVs with a 55 percent market share.
As recently as 2015, the Toyota Corolla passenger car was Australia’s best-selling make and model for the year.
That was four years after the Mazda3 became the first fully imported car ever to top the annual sales charts.
The Holden Commodore was the last Australian-made car to top the annual sales chart in 2010, after an uninterrupted 15-year run.
Ford hasn’t won an annual sales race since the Australian-made Falcon was No. 1 in 1995.
But the Australian-designed, Thai-built Ford Ranger hit the No. 1 spot in October for the fifth time in 2023, while the latest Ford Everest, which shares the same platform, was in the monthly top ten for the first time.
While Australia stopped making cars in 2017, utes have consistently topped the sales charts, 90 years after Ford Australia engineer Louis ‘Lewis’ Bandt designed the Ford ‘coupe utility’ in Geelong.
The Toyota HiLux has been Australia’s top car every year since 2016 and looks set to retain that crown in 2023, having won the sales race five times so far, but with strong competition from the more modern Ford Ranger.
Toyota remains the best-selling brand with a 17.4 percent market share this year, more than double Mazda’s 8.4 percent and Ford’s 6.9 percent.
All-electric carmaker Tesla also missed the top ten monthly sales figures for the first time in 2023, with neither the Model Y nor the Model 3 appearing in October.
The remaining seven spots went to a medium to large SUV or four-wheel drive, including the Toyota RAV4, Toyota LandCruiser (photo), MG ZS, Mazda CX-5, Toyota Prado, Mitsubishi Outlander and Ford Everest
The Model 3 was the closest thing to a passenger car, appearing on the list in January and February as the only model that resembled a sedan.
The Model Y, a hatch-style SUV, played that role in March.
The Hyundai i30 made the top ten in April, May and June, while the Toyota Corolla made the top 10 in July, August and September.
So far in 2023, 1,006,095 new vehicles have been sold, of which 176,646 were passenger cars – a dismal share of 17.6 percent.
By comparison, 564,840 of these were SUVs, or 56 percent of new vehicles sold, with utes (also known as light commercial vehicles) having a 22 percent share, while 221,774 were ordered.