Page 23 - Australasian Paint & Panel Magazine Mar-Apr 2021

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3,412,459 light commercial vehicles (LCVs) on the road last year, travelling a total of 52.3 million kilometres (an aver- age of 16,378 kilometres per vehicle, al- though Australia Post’s fleet of Mercedes- Benz vans alone travelled a massive average of 100,000 kilometres a year).
When you have more vans driving more miles, the law of average tells you that more of them than ever are going to be involved in accidents.
A study by the Department of Infra- structure, Transport, Regional Devel- opment and Communication back in 2017 found that, at the time, light com- mercial vehicles made up one in six of all registered vehicles and almost one in five of all the vehicle kilometres trav- elled in Australia.
Back in 2015, LCVs accounted for 21 per cent of road deaths. Even adjust- ing for the extra kilometres those ve- hicles travelled, that meant fata
LCV crashes were still 17 per
cent higher than those for light passenger cars, which would translate into more non-fatal crashes also. An IAG spokesperson, although unable to give specific crash data for LCVs said: “We do see a sig- nificantly higher claims frequency for these vehicles”
While the car industry struggled at times last year, due to a catastrophic loss of foot traffic in dealerships, it was a brighter scenario for light commercial vehicles. LCVs took a 22.4 per cent share of the Australia vehicle market in 2020.
Matt Moran, Communications Direc- tor at Ford Motor Company, says that de- spite Covid lockdowns, his company has seen a marked increase in van sales.
“We sold 303 Ford Transit Customs in January 2021 compared to 164 in Janu- ary 2020, so that’s a good indicator of the increasing popularity of the mod- el,” he says.
“Typical customers are owner-opera- tors or small businesses or larger fleets. We recognise the importance of keeping
Overall, there were a
whopping 3,412,459 LCVs on the road last year, travelling a total of 52.3 million kilometres”
them on the road and minimising their downtime because when the the van’s in the shop, the customer’s not working.”
Hyundai Australia spokesman Gui- do Schenken agreed that small-business owners - tradies for example, who also use a lot of vans - are a big part of the market. Fleet sales have long been a spe- ciality of Ford and Toyota but Hyundai is keen to grab some of that business.
The company has benefitted from the uptick in demand, with its iLoad model being the second-best-selling van in 2020 behind Toyota’s perennial favour- ite, the HiAce.
“The iLoad has held an average 23 per cent market share between 2016 and 2020, with the three-seat automatic variant with the lift tailgate being the most popular, moving an average 2454 units per annum between 2016 and
2020,” he says.
In the last calendar year, the iLoad man-
aged 2290 units, despite several months where sales were difficult to make.
With more vans on the road, it’s perti- nent that repair shops are equipped to deal with a higher influx of LCV jobs.
Michael Killen from Killen's Smash Repairs in Armidale has had the fore- sight to equip his shop to deal with large vans and make allowances to meet the increasing demand for repairs.
“We will have some further scope for van repairs in coming months – we’ve got a new jig system that is a six-metre extension bench that will accomodate the bigger commercial vans,” he says.
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LEFT: Toyta Hiace still tops the van sale charts.
BELOW: MercedesBenz Valente a high end people transporter.
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