Market Insight: Large car segment fights on

ONCE the backbone of Australia's suburban sprawl, the large passenger car segment struggles on with diminishing annual sales, triggered by the 2017 cessation of production of the Ford Falcon, Holden Commodore and Toyota Aurion.

It was the demise of local production of these three models, triggered by factors including sliding large-car sales, that brought the large-car segment to its knees. 

During one of their last full years, combined Falcon and Commodore sales were 77 per cent of the large car segment. The remaining 9098 units sold in 2016 were mostly made up of the Toyota Aurion, Skoda Superb and Hyundai Genesis.

One year later, Ford sold only 210 Falcons during its final months in showrooms and the Commodore, poised to end production in October, started its slide off the new-car ladder.

In 2017 there were 20 large cars on sale  – although the first-gen Genesis G80, Infiniti Q70 and Volvo S80 were retiring – notching up almost 33,000 annual sales. Holden and Ford still accounted for 73 per cent of the sector.

Yet the large-car market appears to have some underlying strength. Australia will sell close to 6000 large cars this year, which is up on the 4689 units sold in 2021 and the 5353 of 2020.

There are 11 models in the category, with the Kia Stinger clearly the favoured big car, showing almost 1800 sales in the first seven months of 2022 and on its way to crack 3000 for the year.

Stingers account for more than half (52 per cent) of the large-car segment and found boosted popularity this year with year-to-date sales to July up by 75.1 per cent on the same period in 2021.

For the month of July, the Stinger lifted sales – mainly attributed to new stock arrivals – by 93.1 per cent compared with July in 2021.

The second-placed Skoda Superb was almost as successful, raising sales by 17.8 per cent for the seven months of 2022 compared with the same period last year. For the month of July, the Superb was up 31.8 per cent.

Suddenly the large-car segment doesn’t look as doomed as it may first appear. 

Aside from the Stinger and Superb, others in the large passenger class that have improved sales are the Genesis G80 executive sedan (up 25 per cent with 40 sales) as the premium division of Hyundai expands its sales territory, and the Mercedes CLS that is up 39.1 per cent with 32 sales.

The Lexus GS is no longer available and leaves Lexus with no model in the segment.

Brands that saw large car sales fall include th Mercedes with its E-Class model down 67.5 per cent on 191 sales; Jaguar’s sole entrant, the XF P300, down 66.7 per cent with five sales; BMW down 40.8 per cent with its 5 Series recording 252 sales; and Audi’s A6 and A7 down 4.3 per cent (180 sales) and 12.7 per cent (55 sales) respectively.

Of interest is that the third best-selling large car is the all-electric Porsche Taycan that has sold 349 units over eight variants in the first seven months of this year, a pleasing result for its maker despite it being down 15.7 per cent on the same period in 2021.