Fleet bigger and older

11 January 2023

Chamber Senior Research Analyst Steve Bletsos breaks down the latest snapshot on Australia’s motor vehicle fleet. To be featured in Australasian Automotive February 2023.

After more than a year’s wait, the latest snapshot on Australia’s motor vehicle fleet has been released. 

Historically, this information has been compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) through its annual Motor Vehicle Census data collection. As from July 2021, however, this collection was taken over by the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE), who has recently published its first report on the size, composition, and age of Australia’s motor vehicle fleet.

According to BITRE, there were an estimated 20,680,152 registered motor vehicles in Australia as of 31 January 2022 – an increase of 419,143 vehicles or approximately two per cent compared to January 2021. In addition to this, there are a further 4.5 million trailers, caravans, campers, and plant and equipment (e.g. agricultural tractors, all-terrain vehicles, forklifts, golf buggies) that are not included in the total count of registered motor vehicles. 

The number of registered vehicles increased in all jurisdictions, where Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia reported the largest increases in vehicle registrations (2.9, 2.7 and 2.5 per cent respectively), followed by South Australia (2.3 per cent), Victoria and ACT (1.8 per cent), NSW (1.6 per cent) and Northern Territory (0.6 per cent).

Toyota remains the largest passenger vehicle make for the seventeenth consecutive year, with three million registrations, followed by Mazda (1.4 million), Holden (1.36 million), Hyundai (1.2 million) and Ford (974,880).

In terms of the average age of the vehicle fleet across Australia, this increased from 10.8 years in 2021 to 11.0 years in 2022. The average vehicle age increased across all jurisdictions between 2021 and 2022, with Tasmania having the oldest vehicle fleet (13 years), and the ACT has the youngest (9.9 years). Campervans and heavy rigid trucks remain the oldest vehicle types on road, with average vehicle ages of 17 years and 16.3 years respectively.

In terms of the break-up of the fleet by fuel type at the end of January 2022:

• Petrol powered vehicles comprised 70.1 per cent of the fleet (down from 71.3 per cent in 2021)
• Diesel powered vehicles comprised 27.2 percent (up from 26.4 per cent in 2021)
• Hybrid electric vehicles numbered approximately 277,000 (up by 35 per cent over 2021)
• Battery electric vehicles on register numbered approximately 40,000 (up by approximately 100 per cent)
• Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on register numbered 46 (up from four vehicles in 2021).

Of the 40,000 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) on register, around 34,000 were passenger cars, of which Tesla had the largest share with approximately 22,260 vehicles on register as of 31 January 2022, up from 10,125 vehicles on 31 January 2021. Hyundai accounted for the second highest number of BEVs on register as at the end of January 2022 with 2,753 vehicles, followed by Nissan (2,508), MG (1,435) and Mercedes-Benz (1,077).

BITRE has also made it known that it will also make available more detailed estimates of the car parc by make/model, registered postcode, year of manufacture and other available vehicle characteristics, for users upon special request.