We are all prisoners of the moment. That's true for all things, including cars. Our current moment is dominated by conversations around EVs, spearheaded by the hype that Tesla has garnered.
There are a couple of notable things just looking at the overall numbers, and thus a few key years to highlight. 2015 saw an explosion in new car registrations . And while the numbers have started to come down, even 2022's total numbers still exceed pre-2015 levels.While overall car sales have gone down in 2022, three brands have in fact netted record sales for the past decade - Ferrari, Porsche and Rolls-Royce.
The other significant disrupter is BYD - the 786 cars registered in 2022 represents a 783 per cent growth. With more models coming to market, expect BYD to continue to be a growing player in the local car scene. And while perhaps not quite as big a number, Polestar also moved a pretty good number of vehicles, a trend that may continue.
The one surprise? Ssangyong - the brand's 129 per cent growth in 2022 is in stark contrast to overall market contraction. As posited by our colleague, this may be due to the use of these cars for car-sharing services.Honda, since 2017, has been trending downwards . After the PHV explosion with Vezels flooding the roads in 2015 and 2016, Honda registration numbers have been heading south. However, it's worth noting that the recent figures still exceed pre-2015 figures.
The stark data point, though, is Volkswagen. With the exception of 2015, which saw a 21 per cent year-on-year increase, the other years since 2013 have seen numbers heading south, culminating in a pretty dastardly 51 per cent drop in 2022 . Luxury brands are more immune from market fluctuations, and we are also seeing a trend that the market is getting more affluent.