New cars on Captain Cook Wharf in Ports of Auckland. File photo Photo: 123RF
Delivery times for new and used cars have blown out by weeks or months in New Zealand as ships stack up off Australian ports.
A biosecurity scare has jammed ports across the Tasman since December, exacerbating supply chain ructions.
The industry says thousands of vehicles meant to be bound for New Zealand were instead in a backlog in Japan.
The managing director of major importer Autohub, Frank Willett, said the usual five-to-seven week turnaround from a dealer placing an order here, to getting delivery from Japan, had turned into four to five months in some cases.
"It will be fair for you to budget three months at this stage and hope for faster delivery," Willett said.
It was the worst constriction he had seen in 17 years in the trade.
"I have got customers who have waited over a month and they haven't got a shipping notice yet" to confirm when a vehicle would ship, said Nick Owens, who runs Auto Inspection Services, a major entry certifier of vehicles in the South Island.
A Christchurch used car dealer said some cars ordered in December only arrived two weeks ago.
Willett said some customers were sick of waiting, and dealers' cashflow was suffering.
A Wellington used car dealer told RNZ: "We have a lot of deals falling over, people changing their minds because cars are taking so long to get here."
Other buyers face losing a Clean Car Discount rebate or having to pay a higher fee - many rebates and fees change on 1 July - and even cars ordered weeks ago may not make it, and get registered, before that change.
One internal industry calculation of the Clean Car Discount changes is that for a random selection of about 6000 imported vehicles, rebates would fall by 44 percent and fees would rise by 160 percent.
An industry calculation is that for a random selection of about 6000 imported vehicles, rebates would fall by 44 percent and fees would rise by 160 percent under the Clean Car Discount. Photo: Supplied
'Feast or famine' as shipping delays cause bottlenecks
The shipping delays are also pushing up vehicle storage costs.
Willett said some ships were sailing direct to New Zealand, or had been redirected to do this, but deliveries were irregular and sometimes coincided with a ship eventually getting here from Australia, causing a flood.
Owens said it was "famine or feast".
His business averaged 300 vehicles a month but could handle up to 100 a week.
The bottlenecks, plus trans-shipping - where some vessels unloaded Christchurch-bound vehicles in Auckland and sent them on a later ship - meant they could see up to 200 cars arriving at once "with very little notice".
"This can lead to some expensive bills for us to arrange short-term vehicle storage, and then delays throughout the whole process of preparing the vehicle to be 'yard-ready' for the dealer," Owens said.
Stats NZ figures show new passenger vehicle imports about 10 percent down, or 3000 vehicles, for the first three months of this year compared to the last two years.
Used passenger vehicle imports across the first three months of 2023 are about the same as a year ago but are 30 percent down - or 10,000 vehicles - on each of the three years before that.
Signs of easing
Willett said there were signs of the logjam easing in Australia.
"Things should start to speed up."
However, as of 3 May Melbourne's port had 17 ships queuing for slots when it would usually have one or two.
Plus dealers were still ordering more cars than the constrained shippers could cope with, despite vehicle export agents trying to get them to slow down until the backlog cleared, Willett said.
"There are storage costs to be paid that someone's got to pay.
"So if the export agent has to load storage costs onto the price of the vehicle, that actually just drives the price of vehicle up."
It would have helped if the government had heeded industry advice and not rushed to change the Clean Car Discount by July, Willett said.
The biosecurity hazard was a new type of threat, Australian biosecurity has been quoted saying, arising from new cars stored for longer than usual in Asia, being exposed to more seeds and organic detritus.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported the number of new cars having to be decontaminated had soared by 88 percent last year.
Its figures showed many more new car imports from China than anywhere else having to be decontaminated.
Australia's level of biosecurity issues not evident in NZ - MPI
New Zealand's Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) said it was not experiencing anything similar.
"We haven't seen anything near what's been seen across the ditch," Biosecurity manager of national programmes James Reed said.
Inspectors had not intercepted any live biosecurity matter on vehicle carriers this season, and the few discoveries there had been were found by crews on board.
"We're keeping a close relationship and conversations with our colleagues over the ditch. And so we are keeping a watch on everything.
"But so far, our systems are working really well, and our verifications are confirming that," Reed said.
Ports here were checked, as were ships when they came in, as were random samplings of the cars on board.
Vehicles were clean when put on board, Reed said.
MPI had approved vehicle-cleaning systems in several countries, including in Japan, and for used cars. It had staff in Japan two weeks ago to observe new vehicle systems.
China had its own systems and is low-risk for live biosecurity matter because of its natural predators.
"It's very highly compliant," Reed said.
Checks are proportional and randomised, so as the imports from China increased, MPI would check more vehicles.