charles
Adrian PatonAustralian car sales still strong in face of high fuel prices
June 4th 2008 05:45
Oh! What a feeling...Toyota!
Despite escalating petrol prices and high interest rates, new car sales in Australia remained strong in May with official VFACTS figures released today by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) showing that 88,640 cars, trucks and buses were sold last month.
This equates to a 4% increase on the same period in 2007 - an all-time record year with over a million vehicles sold - despite the figures showing a slight drop of 2.5 % in the passenger car market but with the continued boom of the SUV and light commercial markets making up that deficit.
This is evident in the 16.8% increase on May 2007 for the medium SUV segment and 12% increase in the large SUV segment due to the increasing number of clean-diesel purchases.
FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar said: "Several new common-rail injection clean diesels have entered the market in the past few months, and we can see that Australian drivers are keen to give the new technology a try,".
"The traditional image of diesel vehicles has changed, he said. Diesel vehicles can provide significant benefits in terms of fuel efficiency and reduced carbon emissions but have good power and performance." he added.
"The traditional image of diesel vehicles has changed, he said. Diesel vehicles can provide significant benefits in terms of fuel efficiency and reduced carbon emissions but have good power and performance." he added.
Toyota remained the top-selling marque in May with 23.4 per cent of the market, followed by Holden with 12.5 per cent and Ford with 10.9 per cent. The Holden Commodore was the best selling car in May with 4215 units sold.
Toyota still leads the sales race in 2008 with 101,816 vehicles sold, followed by Holden with 55,155 and Ford with 44,183.
[Source: FCAI]
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