Representatives of the main car-makers in Australia told GoAutoNews Premium that they’re managing their way through the pandemic right now and see things slowly returning to normal before the end of the financial year.
Australian Automobile Dealer Association CEO James Voortman said Australia is not alone in experiencing delays caused by issues including factory closures and difficulties in importing cars.
“It’s not uncommon for consumers to go into the dealership and be told they have to wait a certain amount of time before they can get the car,” he said.
“But as I understand it now, import and export supply chains are running smoother. They will improve their delivery timeframes over the next months.”
“There is tight supply in the new and used-vehicle markets and while new-car supply is getting better, gradually, the supply of used cars has not improved.”
Toyota Australia said it “has been fortunate to weather the storm better than most” showing its proportion of sales reductions was about half the industry average, both nationally and in Victoria.
“Toyota’s order intake has remained strong, even when we were short of supply, which indicates our customers understand the current situation,” a spokeswoman told GoAutoNews Premium.
“With the availability of additional stock, we expect to fulfill a substantial number of orders in October and in coming months.”
The spokeswoman said stock levels were higher across all models which put the company in a strong position for the current quarter.
“This also includes our position for RAV4, where the waiting list has substantially reduced over the past few months,” she said.
“But as demand remains strong, this could push out delivery slightly particularly for hybrid variants.
“Another model that has become high in demand includes the all-new Yaris hybrid, which could result in future delivery delays.”
Toyota said that the background for this was the unexpected delays caused by the Victorian lockdown that has affected the final assembly in Melbourne of the HiLux Rogue and Rugged X variants.
Kia Motors Australia (KMAu) said its stock levels were running lower than average but expected these to be back to normal by the second quarter of next year.
“Our passenger range in general has greater demand than supply but Covid-19 has also contributed to the delays,” said KMAu media and communications manager Alyson MacDonald.
“Buyers are waiting on average an extra two weeks compared to the same time last year but this is also due to an increase in demand and not necessarily a decrease in supply.”
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has also experienced a reduction in supply volumes and a large jump in demand across the range.
JLR Australia PR manager James Scrimshaw said: “We have made every effort to satisfy customer orders by selling down stock of new and demonstrator vehicles to unprecedented lows.”
“However, models including Range Rover Sport, Land Rover Discovery Sport, Land Rover Evoque and Jaguar E Pace are experiencing supply constraint.
“Our customers have been very understanding as we manage our way through this unusual period.”
Audi Australia corporate communications manager Shaun Cleary said the car-maker is in a solid position now after some temporary shortages on some models because of production interruptions at the factories. These included the Q5 supply restrictions last month that are now getting back to normal.
“Overall, we are in a stronger position than in 2019, although this could be unique to Audi,” he said.
“We had significant supply issues throughout most of last year including no Q7 stock until August, no A1 and Q3 until the end of the 2019 year, and hardly any RS/R8 models for a while.
“We are working hard to meet strong demand across our new product range, especially smaller volume production models like our new RS/R8 range launched since July.
“Demand for these models is always very high early in their lifecycle. Covid-19 hasn’t specifically caused the previous slowdowns, although clearly it hasn’t helped.”
Nissan Australia said it has good stock across the range, although there is some supply challenge with particular variants and colours.
It said that Leaf, Qashqai and Juke “are more challenged” because Nissan’s UK production was halted for some time earlier in the year due to Covid-19. That was exacerbated by the longer shipping times to Australia from the UK compared with its other production sources.
Nissan said that customers wanting specific variants or colours are having to wait for delivery longer than they did in 2019.
BMW Group Australia said its business is in line with the company’s global sales figures.
“We have been able to maintain a strong position in the market despite the pandemic and production shutdowns earlier this year,” said product communications manager Nick Raman.
“We are outperforming the industry and many of our models are achieving strong growth including four which have lead their segments for 10 consecutive months: 3 Series, 8 Series, Z4 and X6.”
Hyundai Australia said delays to its vehicles were small and centered around transport and logistics issues triggered by responses to the pandemic.
Ford Motor Company Australia and NZ communications director Matt Moran said there are sufficient stock levels of all Ford models in the country and his company did not envisage any supply issues in the short to medium-term.
The same outlook was shown at Mazda Australia which said it had worked closely with its head office in Japan throughout the pandemic.
This included the initial volume planning of the new BT-50 ute prior to its launch.
“It’s testament to our ongoing relationship with head office that we’ve been able to manage volume to suit the market conditions and my understanding is there have been no supply issues across the range,” said Mazda Australia’s senior PR specialist Adam Davis.
By Neil Dowling
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