South African motorists kept buying new vehicles in October, shrugging off a punishing month at the pumps. Domestic sales came in at 61 890 units, up 5 839 vehicles or 10,4% on the 56 051 recorded in October 2025.
Exports delivered the bigger surprise. Shipments abroad reached 38 117 units, a 6,3% jump on the same month last year and 21,1% higher than September. It is the first real turnaround since the slide that began in February 2026, helped along by stronger demand for light commercial vehicles and extra-heavy commercial vehicles. The recovery has not yet erased the damage, however: exports for the first ten months of the year still trail the same period in 2025 by 8,3%.
Of the 61 890 vehicles sold locally, an estimated 48 234 units, or 78,0%, went through dealers. The rental industry took 16,5%, government accounted for 3,3% and corporate fleets for 2,2%.
Passenger cars led the charge. The market registered 45 084 units, up 5 380 vehicles or 13,6% on the 39 704 sold a year earlier. Rental companies were responsible for a healthy 21,4% of those sales.
Light commercial vehicles, bakkies and minibuses grew more modestly, adding 291 units (2,2%) to reach 13 689, compared with 13 398 in October 2025. Medium commercial vehicles edged down by 7 units, or 0,9%, to 770, from 777. Heavy trucks and buses performed better, rising 8,1% to 2 347 units from 2 172, a gain of 175 vehicles.
The shift towards new energy vehicles (NEVs) is gathering real pace. Between January and September 2026, South Africans bought 22 389 of them, already 34,0% more than the 16 703 sold in the whole of 2025, with a full quarter still to go. In September alone, one in every nine cars sold was an NEV.
The mix is changing too. Since July, rechargeable vehicles have made up more than half of cumulative NEV sales, and by September they held 50,5% of the year-to-date total, made up of 8 082 plug-in hybrids and 3 217 battery electric vehicles. Conventional hybrids followed closely on 49,5%, or 11 090 units. The numbers suggest buyers are gradually moving from traditional hybrids towards vehicles that plug in.
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Green mobility is also starting to reach beyond the family car. Light and medium commercial vehicles are showing early signs of electrification, and although volumes remain small, they point to a low-carbon shift spreading into logistics and fleet operations. Keeping that going, the industry argues, will take aligned policy, more charging infrastructure and faster growth in local manufacturing, so that rising demand translates into investment, jobs and stronger export competitiveness.
The backdrop was anything but easy. From October 7, inland 95-octane petrol broke through the R30 a litre barrier for the first time, settling at R30,25, a 12,4% increase on September. Higher international oil prices and supply disruptions drove the surge. Brent crude averaged US$101 a barrel over the October fuel-price review period and climbed past US$110 towards month-end, squeezing household budgets and fleet operators alike.
Some relief is on the way. The R10-billion temporary fuel levy package announced in the October Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement will cut the diesel levy by R3,00 a litre and the petrol levy by R1,50 a litre from November 4.
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It will not undo the damage, though. On October’s price levels, petrol would still sit roughly 39% above where it started in January, while wholesale diesel would remain 57% to 61% higher. As the industry sees it, the measure is a stopgap rather than a cure for high transport costs, but it should ease the pressure on households, logistics firms and corporate fleets heading into the festive season.
Abroad, the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank both left interest rates unchanged at their late-October meetings, weighing stubborn energy-driven inflation against fragile growth. For South Africa’s export-focused vehicle manufacturers, that pause brings brief relief from further tightening, although expensive energy and high borrowing costs overseas continue to hold back a full recovery in foreign demand.
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At home, headline consumer price inflation ticked up to 4,5% year on year in September from 4,4% in August, while underlying price pressures stayed fairly subdued.
With the final quarter under way, rising domestic sales and the rapid uptake of NEVs point to a market with more staying power than the economic gloom might suggest.
Whether that holds will depend on improving consumers’ spending power, keeping policy competitive and predictable, and tackling the structural costs weighing on both manufacturers and motorists. Just as important is making sure the move to new energy technologies leads to more local production, investment and employment.
In an increasingly tricky global trading environment, the industry’s long-term health will hinge on strengthening the home market while protecting its place in export markets.
Colin Windell for Colin-on-Cars in association with
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