News & Views

As we move into the second half of the year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics is starting to release more detail from its 2019 Motor Vehicle Census, letting us dig into the Australian car parc at a national, and state level.

With End Of Financial Year sales under way, many small business owners are considering bringing forward purchases to take advantage of instant asset write-offs. Given this increased level of activity, we thought now would be a good time to take a look at sales trends within the commercial van market.

41,426 new trucks were sold in 2018, finally breaking a long-standing record, and setting the industry on its way to deliver to the growing Australian freight task. This result was largely driven by the Heavy Duty segment, with the 14,326 trucks sold making up a third of the total volume, and putting HD up 21% on 2017.

Welcome to our first 2019 blog post, which I'm using to reflect back on the changing nature of the Australian car parc. As we well know, 2018 was the first full year since the closure of the final local new car manufacturing plant by Holden, but how is that reflected in the car sales data.

As we move ever closer to an autonomous future, the safety of drivers, passengers, and other road users (in vehicles or pedestrians) is a key part of the conversation. The numerous ethical, moral and practical issues emerging through this debate are yet to be resolved, but fundamentally businesses will continue to need to ensure that their employees are safe while travelling for work. 

The release of the November 2018 VFACTS new vehicle sales data has all but confirmed what many industry commentators have been quietly predicting, with Heavy Commercial Vehicles sales on track to break the 40,000 vehicle barrier for the first time. The closest to this previously was 2007, where 38,131 sales were recorded, but sales fell off sharply by 2009, with the global financial crisis seeing the market drop to 28,654 units.

While we spend a lot of time talking about electric vehicles, it can be difficult to define the extent to which they've penetrated the Australian car parc. Luckily, we have the ABS to help out, with the release of more data from the January 2018 Motor Vehicle Census allowing us to delve into this topic in a lot more detail.

The insurance industry is going through a period of technologically-driven change, with the advent of wearables and telematics taking us from a self-reported world towards a future in which decisions are based on captured (and shared) behavioural data. From an automotive perspective, this will allow for the delivery of more personalised products, with providers already looking at how customer driving behaviour can be leveraged to deliver tailored premiums. These innovations mostly however remain in development, meaning that insurance companies still need to rely on self-reported information, particularly when it comes to distances travelled.

Talk to a fleet management organisation or telematics provider about what they offer, and one benefit that will be discussed is increased fleet efficiency. Helping fleets work out how they can use their vehicles more, and ultimately reduce their overall fleet size. In our recent fleet research, we saw that businesses planning to reduce their fleet size in the year ahead are more likely to be using telematics, so they do also seem to be delivering on that promise. 

Although managing a fleet within a corporate environment is challenging, many businesses don't see the need for a full-time fleet manager until they get close to the 100 vehicle mark. This is despite the complexities of fleet management, with expanding regulatory demands adding to existing logistical and organisational requirements. In addition to this, as businesses seek increased asset utilisation, and reduced running costs, an additional level of expectation is added to the management of their business fleet.