NEWS
THREE NEW BRANCHES FOR ADRAD The company continues to expand
Following significant growth in both its customer base and the variety and volume of auto parts it supplies, Adrad has invested in additional office and warehouse facilities around Australia. Servicing Melbourne’s northern suburbs, Adrad has opened an impressive new branch at 27 Quinlan Road, Epping. It says this branch provides faster delivery of parts to customers in the local area. The large Dandenong branch will continue to service the southern metro and Victorian regional areas. Adrad’s Townsville branch has moved to a larger dedicated facility at 10-12 Auscan Crescent, Garbutt. The extra space provides room for carrying more stock and allows for future growth. Delivery runs from Townsville now operate twice daily.
THE DIESEL SHIFT
ACA Research takes a look at the latest fuel type market share statistics There are more than 18 million passenger and light commercial vehicles registered in Australia, and as of 2021, around 14.5m of them (or around 80 percent) are powered by petrol. Looking at the data, we can however see that petrol has become less dominant over the past five years (although maybe not in the way that people might expect). Whilst much has been said about the future shift to carbon neutral power trains, looking at the Australian car parc shows us that the largest shift has been from petrol to diesel. In fact, diesel’s share of the car parc has increased by around 60 percent – from 17 percent before 2016 to be the fuel of choice for more than one in four vehicles sold over the past five years.
Source: TecAlliance VIO Data – May 2021
Queensland has also gained a new Gold Coast branch at 26 Expo Court, Ashmore. Adrad has retained its Molendinar premises (which has on-site radiator manufacturing facilities) and brought Ashmore on board to assist managing the extra volume of parts and deliveries. As the company continues to expand, there will be more Adrad branches added to its extensive national distribution network. With such a long-held reputation as Australia’s largest radiator manufacturer and supplier, Adrad says many workshops are surprised at the diversity of automotive repair and service parts now available from Adrad. While the company does have thousands of radiators available, its ever-expanding range extends well beyond engine cooling products. For more information, call Adrad customer service on 1800 882 043 or Natrad Trade Online on 1800 628 723. 16
Australian Automotive Aftermarket Magazine November 2021
We know Australian consumer vehicle preferences have changed significantly over the past five to ten years, so much of this will have been driven by the shift towards SUVs and Utes. There are however clear decisions that have been made by different manufacturers as to the extent to which they go down this path or not. Breaking the data out by the country of origin of the different manufacturers, we can clearly see this reflected in how their vehicles are distributed: • Australia (ie. Holden, Ford): Looking first at newer vehicles, 44 percent are dieselpowered, with the Ford Ranger and the Holden Colorado combining to make up 228,095 of these (~80 percent of the AU diesel parc). In comparison, diesels make up just 15 percent of the Australian car parc from pre-2016. • South Korea (ie. Hyundai, Kia): Despite having a strong SUV line-up, neither brand has placed much emphasis on diesel, with petrol vehicles making up more than 90 percent of the newer vehicles on road. Key here is that their range doesn’t include a ute (and based on current information won’t for a while yet), so this appears unlikely to change in the near future. • Japan (ie. Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, etc): They are arguably the most important
to consider, given Japanese brands make up more than half of the vehicles on Australian roads. Around 18 percent of their older vehicles use diesel, but this has increased to almost 30 percent of those registered since then. Looking at individual manufacturers here, this is again driven by specific models – Isuzu Ute grew share significantly in more recent years, while Mitsubishi (Triton and Pajero), Nissan (Navara), and Toyota (Hilux, LandCruiser and Prado) have also made a strong push to diesel in their light commercial vehicles. The surprising counterpoint to the growth of diesel, is that hybrid has gone backwards in terms of share of vehicles. While we are talking smaller volumes, they’ve gone from 0.57 percent of older vehicles to just 0.39 percent of those since 2016. In context though, we can see that this is somewhat misleading, with hybrids becoming more broadly popular, and selling extremely strongly over the past 12 -18 months. This is evident when we look at the model line-up, with the top options historically sitting with the Japanese manufacturers (ie. Toyota Camry/Prius, various Lexus models, and the Honda Civic). More recently, these brands are still very well represented (for example, Toyota Corolla, Camry, RAV4, etc), but we can also see them playing a greater role at the premium end of the market (ie. MB, BMW, Audi) as these brands progress on their journey to electrification. Ultimately, this again comes back to a question of now vs the future. In the here and now, we need to remain focused on the growing proportion of diesel vehicles emerging from manufacturer warranties. Hybrid and electric vehicles will continue their growth, but this remains a longerterm consideration. This column was prepared for AAA Magazine by ACA Research, the AAAA’s partner in the AAAA Aftermarket Dashboard which is delivered to AAAA members each quarter. For more information, visit www.acaresearch.com.au or contact Ben Selwyn on bselwyn@acaresearch.com.au
