Tony Weber

THE Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) is close to introducing a revised sales reporting service for new vehicles in Australia that should more accurately reflect actual retail sales to genuine consumers, according to CEO Tony Weber.

As the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has identified, current practices allow for new vehicles to be recorded by a car manufacturer as sold, registered or otherwise in use before it has been purchased by a consumer.

This pre-reporting has attracted criticism on a variety of fronts, such as producing misleading industry sales figures, distorting the true level of market demand, and placing financial pressure on dealers to register cars to meet sales targets.

Of particular concern to the ACCC is the fact that a manufacturer’s warranty could commence before the vehicle is in the hands of a consumer, reducing the cover period for the eventual owner who may not have been made aware of this at the time of purchase.

In an interview with GoAutoNews Premium, Mr Weber said he was hopeful that an announcement could be made “in the near future” for a revised system that would bring “better quality” sales figures.

“We have a contract with our provider, IHS Markit, to have continuous improvement. Data collection right around the world, and the use of data, is becoming more and more sophisticated,” he said.

“In that environment, we believe there is more that can be done and we are working with our data provider to bring the latest technology, and to bring third parties to the table, beyond IHS Markit, so that we can have better quality data.”

Mr Weber would not be drawn on specifying what changes will be made, saying only that “we’re in a testing regime at the moment – we’re that close – and I don’t want to put pressure on those third parties”.

“I’m not (100 per cent) sure that the testing will work. We are literally doing research and development on the whole process, and whether that’s successful, like most R&D, we want to keep that in-house,” he said.

“But as soon as we can roll this out, we’ll be the first to tell you.”

Asked to describe what the new system will look like – the advantages it will bring – Mr Weber said: “What we are going to see is a closer alignment between sales and the keys going into the hands of consumers.”

But the FCAI chief said the situation was more complex than simply not counting a new vehicle as a reported retail sale until it is registered to a genuine consumer.

“That’s an oversimplification,” Mr Weber said. “It’s about sales. It’s not about registration.

“(Say) I am a farmer. I have an enormous property. I buy myself a farm vehicle. I never register it.

“That is a ‘sale’. A lot of people have this simplistic view of these issues (but) it’s not necessarily simplistic.

“(Say) I sell a vehicle to the department of defence. Is that a sale? Yes, it is. Is it registered? No, it’s not.

“So there are broader issues. Like so many of these things, they sound simplistic but when you actually delve into them, they are more complex. That’s why we need to have, and need to work on, the integrity of the scheme, and that’s what we are doing.

“There are many fronts to this but I have always said, and I will say it again and again, at the end of the day every car has one VIN and it has to be either sold or scrapped – and very few cars are scrapped in this country.”

Mr Weber agreed that it was important for the industry to supply accurate sales figures for reasons such as integrity and transparency, but did not commit to a specific code of conduct governing how car manufacturers report new-vehicle sales in Australia.

“I agree with your underlying statement that it’s important to get this data right,” he said.

“We have rules in place, and have always had rules in place, and it is the responsibility of the dealers who report these sales to the OEMs, and the OEMs themselves, to play by those rules.

“But we have technology out there that we are investigating. If that technology comes up with the green light, we will introduce that to the marketplace as quickly as possible.”

Asked whether the changes will solve issues that routinely arise in relation to sales reporting, such as placing financial stress on dealers who have registered cars to meet sales targets set by the OEMs, Mr Weber said: “It will address the timeliness of the reporting of the sale and the linking to when the keys go in the hands of the consumers.

“The relationship more broadly between the dealer and the OEM is not a matter for the FCAI. It’s between the dealer and the OEM,” he said.

By Terry Martin