ICE sales sink to new low

Sales of new cars with traditional internal combustion engines (ICEs) plummeted last month after a surge from consumers for low-emissions models in the final weeks of the clean car discount.

A breakdown of December’s figures shows only 1,595 of the 8,559 passenger cars sold, or 19 per cent, were units powered by petrol or diesel alone.  

This is the lowest monthly proportion of ICEs on record and the smallest monthly figure apart from April 2020 when the country was in a Covid-19 lockdown, reports Interest.co.nz. 

It meant 6,964, or 81 per cent, of the new passenger cars sold in December were either battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) or hybrids.

The government’s December 31 axeing of the feebates scheme, which offered rebates for buyers when registering eligible EVs, drove the extra demand for such vehicles last month.

Electrified models had a 53 per cent share of the market for all of 2023, up from 35 per cent in 2022 and 21 per cent in 2021.