VFACTS March 2024: Ford Ranger stays strong as RAV4 rises in the ranks

Toyota finished up as March’s best selling brand while the Ford Ranger remained the best-selling nameplate.

March 2024 saw 109,647 new vehicle registrations, a jump of 12.7 per cent – 12,396 sales – compared to March 2023 when 97,251 vehicles were sold.

March’s record combined with January and February results sees a benchmark first quarter for new vehicle sales of 304,452 – an increase of 13.2 precent over Q1 2023.

The Light Commercial market – in the wake of controversial emissions laws from the Federal Government – increased 4.8 per cent (1049 vehicles) while the heavy market was the only area of decline, with a 4.1 per cent drop representing 187 vehicles.

Electric car sales cracked 10,000 units for the first time led by the Tesla Model Y.

The Toyota RAV4 took the runner-up spot with 5070 sales – up from 1778 in March 2023 to post a 185.2 per cent increase, the greatest for the month.

The Tesla Model Y was the most popular electric vehicle and third overall with 4379 sales – more than double its March 2023 result of 1938 sales (+126 per cent).

It was one of only two cars to decline year-on-year, the other being the Isuzu D-Max with its 2465 sales less than the 2789 sold last March. The D-Max was beaten to fifth place by the Mitsubishi Outlander (2764).

Seventh was the Ford Everest (2264) ahead of the Nissan X-Trail (2161), Toyota LandCruiser (2159) and Mazda CX-5 to complete the 10-best sellers.

Ford’s 8776 sales for March – with the Ford Ranger making up 5661 of that figure – was enough to take second position for the month ahead of Mazda which recorded 8246 sales (down 6.1 per cent over March 2023).

Despite being the only top 10 car maker to post a fall in sales year-to-date, Mazda is still ahead of Ford for the year so far, maintaining second place overall with 23,761 sales to Ford’s 22,657 (+18.5 per cent).

Nissan (4976, +69.6 per cent), Isuzu (4351,+23.5 per cent) and MG (3948. +0.4 per cent) filled out the top 10 for March.

New South Wales registered the most vehicles with 33,808 sales, ahead of Victoria and Queensland with 30,099 and 23,550 sales, respectively.

“This is a terrific result for the sector however, all car brands are well aware that these