News & Views

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.

We've been talking about electric vehicles a lot this week, particularly about what it would take for them to achieve mass adoption. As we've seen in other countries, that process will typically be achieved with the support of government intervention, which in Australia is most likely to be driven at a state level. In that context, we decided to have a look at EV distribution by state, to see where our early adopters are located.

There are currently almost 4 million electric vehicles on road around the world, with more than one in four of them sold in 2017. In Australia however, take-up is well behind many other countries, with one in three vehicles sold here still powered by diesel.

With more and more Australians heading off on overseas holidays to destinations like Thailand, Bali, Japan, and the UK or US, one could believe that the tradition of the great Australian road trip has been lost. Looking into this though, we feel that this isn't really a true reflection, particularly when it comes to caravanning.

Despite being the resident office motorcyclist, it's rare that I get to dig into bike stats, with our work more commonly focussed on vehicles with four (or more) wheels. Following on from some recent queries, I have however spent a bit of time looking at some trends within the Australian bike parc.

While we spend a lot of our time capturing, analysing and talking about the primary data we collect, secondary data is also key to what we do, often giving us the context that fits around our research results. And, while there were some very well-publicised issues around the most recent census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is definitely still king when it comes to sourcing secondary data in Australia.