New car sales face fall of 15,000

Sales of new vehicles in New Zealand in 2011 could be down by 15,000 because of the disruption caused by Japan's earthquake and tsunami, says an industry executive.

Motoring Industry Association chief executive Perry Kerr said the impact of the disaster in Japan remained confusing, as carmakers and suppliers tried to ramp up production to meet pre-quake output.

"But it will have quite a dramatic effect on the industry here. I expect it to take 15,000 units out of this year's sales," said.

Kerr said such a hit could push 2011 sales down to 2009 numbers, when just 70,000 cars and commercials were sold - roughly 27,000 fewer than 2008 and 34,000 fewer than 2007.

The industry bounced back in 2010 to end with sales of around 80,000 units, 14 per cent up on the previous year.

Sales for the first three months of this year were up 14.7 per cent.

Industry leader Toyota warned its sales could be halved going into the second half of the year when stocks would run short.

Its operations and sales general manager Steve Prangnell said it had enough new vehicles to cover the next two months, but "I don't think you can say we're not going to see a shortage of new Toyotas".

He said Toyota factories in Japan were expected to ship vehicles on a "fair-share allocation", based on normal orders. "Where normally we get 100 per cent of what we ask for, we're going to get around about 50 per cent of what we ask for, for at least three to four months."

Toyota NZ had already pulled back on marketing. "There's no point trying to drive customer demand when you don't have enough stock. We've got demand; we just don't have enough supply," Prangnell said.

Toyota last year sold 18,035 new vehicles in New Zealand, 22.4 per cent of the total market. Its Corolla and Hilux were the country's two best selling vehicles.

Toyota production in Japan after the quake dropped by almost 66 per cent. Its plants are now back to 50 per cent capacity and are expected to run at that rate going into July, before ramping up further.

Most of the new-vehicle industry in New Zealand has been affected by the Japan disaster. Mitsubishi has also slowed its marketing programme. But Honda says it has no supply problem.

Top-end European brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi expect to have some hiccups.

Audi general manager Dane Fisher said sales growth over the past few years had stretched production capacity and supply globally. "There will be some issues with components out of Japan, but I don't expect these to affect production for New Zealand."