There’s a growing dominance of SUVs in Western Australia’s car market, with sales of the vehicles almost triple those of passenger cars in July.
There’s a growing dominance of SUVs in Western Australia’s car market, with sales of the vehicles almost triple those of passenger cars in July.
The vehicles have long been a quintessentially American consumer product, although there's evidence they are taking off in other markets.
Forbes reported earlier this year that sports utility vehicles were 44 per cent of new vehicle sales in China in 2019, up from 14 per cent in 2010.
Just shy of half the new vehicles sold in WA in July were sports utility vehicles, with 4,392 SUVs purchased out of a total 8,860.
Passenger car sales, by contrast, were only 1,516, according to the latest data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, with commercial vehicles making up the balance.
Overall car sales so far this year were up 37 per cent to 65,386, with SUVs about 51 per cent of that total.
In its 2019 world energy outlook, the International Energy Agency said consumer preferences were shifting to SUVs around the world, which could offset climate benefits from electric cars.
“The growing appetite among consumers for bigger and heavier cars (SUVs) is already adding extra barrels to global oil consumption,” the agency said.
“SUVs are more difficult to electrify fully, and conventional SUVs consume 25 per cent more fuel per kilometre than medium-sized cars.
“If the popularity of SUVs continues to rise in line with recent trends, this could add another 2 million barrels per day to our projection for 2040 oil demand.”
Electric vehicles are struggling to make inroads in WA, with only 204 sold so far this year, although that was up from 83 in the first seven months of 2020.
Japanese automakers have dominated the market overall, led by Toyota.
The country produced nearly 25,000 of the cars sold in WA so far this year, up 43 per cent, while Thailand was next at 16,500 (up 27.5 per cent).
Mercedes stoush
Seperately today, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission started Federal Court proceedings against Mercedes-Benz.
The ACCC alleged the car maker failed to comply with obligations under a compulsory recall of defective Takata airbags.
"The recall notice required suppliers to communicate with consumers in a way that emphasised the danger of the Takata airbags, particularly the risk of serious injury or death from misdeployment of the airbag inflator," ACC said.
"It also required suppliers to draw attention to the urgency of having airbags replaced.
“The ACCC alleges that, between July 2018 and March 2020, in communications with consumers, Mercedes-Benz contravened the Takata compulsory recall notice by minimising the risks associated with defective Takata airbags and failing to use attention-capturing, high-impact language to avoid consumers ignoring recall notices."
