The latest State of the Nation Report featured a spotlight on the Australian automotive industry, painting a picture of the industry following the end of local car manufacturing.
Despite the imminent closure of the Australian automotive manufacturing industry later this year (Holden and Toyota cease local manufacturing in October 2017), Australians are buying more cars than ever before – record sales in 2016 of well over a million new cars could be repeated in 2017.
Furthermore, Toyota remains Australia’s most-trusted car brand.
In 2016, Australia’s top selling new cars were:
- Toyota Hilux 4×4
- Toyota Corolla
- Hyundai i30
- Ford Ranger
- Mazda 3
None of these cars are locally manufactured.
The report notes however, that there are many subsets of Australia’s automotive industry that will not be impacted by the closure of local manufacturing. These include automotive financing ($20 billion+), automotive insurance ($13 billion+), servicing and repairs ($14 billion+), roadside assist ($6 billion+), fuel ($3 billion+), media and publishing ($1.9 billion+) and parking.
Therefore, the report highlighted some key trends that will shape Australia’s automotive industry over the next decade:
- Quest to zero emissions: When surveyed, a majority of Australians (62 per cent) would pay more for a car with zero emissions today compared to 38 per cent that would not. 17 per cent would pay 0-5 per cent more, 25 per cent would pay 6-10 per cent more, 12 per cent would pay 11-20 per cent more and nine per cent would pay >20 per cent more. Splitting by generations shows 75 per cent of Millennials would be prepared to pay more compared to 51 per cent of Boomers.
- Driverless cars: A slim majority of Australians (54 per cent) are not yet ready for travelling in driverless cars compared to 46 per cent that are. However, looking at demographic breakdowns shows more men (51 per cent) are ready for driverless cars compared to 41 per cent of women. In addition, a clear majority of Millennials (62 per cent) are ready for driverless cars compared to only 26 per cent of Boomers.
- Urban mobility/re-thinking ownership: A majority of Australians (64 per cent) are not aware of car-sharing services compared to 36 per cent that are, however over 200,000 already use car-sharing services like Go-Get and Flexi-car. Men (43 per cent) are more likely than women (29 per cent) to know of car-sharing and Millennials (35 per cent) are more aware of car-sharing than Boomers (26 per cent).
- Digital disruption: Buying cars entirely online is just around the corner and already 34 per cent of Australians are ready to buy a car entirely online compared to 66 per cent that are not. Once again, men (42 per cent) lead women (25 per cent) and Millennials (37 per cent) lead Boomers (26 per cent).