Motor Vehicle Census, Australia, 31 Jan 2021 (original) (raw)

Statistics relating to vehicles which were registered on 31st January 2021 with a motor vehicle registration authority

Key statistics

• There were 20.1 million registered motor vehicles as at 31 January 2021.
• The national fleet increased by 1.7% from 2020 to 2021.
• Toyota topped the list of passenger vehicles for the 16th consecutive year with 3.0 million registrations.
• Diesel vehicles increased to 26.4% of the national fleet, up from 20.9% in 2016.

Final release

This is the final release of the ABS Motor Vehicle Census, Australia. The Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) have been working with Austroads to establish a replacement product using data from the National Exchange of Vehicle and Driver Information System (NEVDIS). For further information see, Motor Vehicle Census 2022.

• An increase in registrations was reported in all states and territories.

• Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory each reported the largest increase from the previous year (2.3%).

• In contrast, Victoria's fleet grew the least by 0.7%.

• New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland accounted for 76% of the national fleet.

• New South Wales had the highest number of registrations with 5.9 million.

• The Northern Territory had the lowest number of registrations with 163 thousand.

• Petrol powered vehicles decreased by 1.0 percentage point to 71.7% of the national fleet.

• Diesel powered vehicles increased by 0.8 percentage points to 26.4% of all registered vehicles.

• There were 23 thousand electric vehicle registrations.

• Electric vehicle registrations increased by 62.3% from the previous year.

1. Other includes articulated trucks, buses, campervans, heavy rigid trucks, light commercial vehicles, light rigid trucks and non-freight carrying trucks.

• Light rigid trucks continued to have the largest growth rate in registrations, increasing 6.0%, followed by articulated trucks with 4.6%.

• Passenger vehicle registrations increased by 1.2% however, their share of the fleet fell 0.4 percentage points to 73.7%.

• In contrast, light commercial vehicle registrations increased by 3.3%, rising to 17.5% of the registered fleet.

• Average age of vehicles across Australia increased to 10.6 years.

• Tasmanian vehicles were the the oldest at 13.3 years.

• The Australian Capital Territory had the youngest fleet with an average age of 9.5 years.

Motor Vehicle Census, Aust.

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 9309.0.