If you were to characterise the van market in 2023, it would be the year of the Euros. The Koreans are biding their time as are the Chinese brands and even Japan is quiet. America doesn’t really like vans that much, so that leaves the powerhouse that is Europe to shoulder the load and drive development.

And barring one or two exceptions, this is exactly what has been happening. First out of the starting grid was Peugeot which released its e-Partner in April and paving the way for Ford two months later to charge in with the e-Transit.

Peugeot amped it up in August zapping any hopes of market dominance by anyone else and fielded the e-Expert, putting the electric vans firmly front of mind for the Kiwi consumer.

In the meantime, on the ICE side, Fiat made a return to our shores with the Series 8 Ducato. Amazingly, the entire year’s allocation was snapped up even as they came off the carrier and the Ducato has disappeared again, at least until next year.

You might be forgiven for thinking the same of Fiat’s Italian cousin IVECO, who had an absolute blinder of an August with over 55 Daily vans going out, which works out to be about 1.8 vans daily, although we’re pretty sure it didn’t go down quite like that – what is .8 of a van anyway? Still, it was an impressive feat.

Mercedes-Benz quietly moved about 66 Sprinters, which compared with previous months would have seen the hero vans for the brand running out of dealerships as soon as they were registered.

And while there may not have been the volume behind the brand, Renault used August as a springboard month, reintroducing the next generation of its medium Trafic van, which prompted some interest in the heavy Master model and set the stage for the little electric Kangoo to come in just this side of Christmas.  

And not wanting to be left out of the party, despite having Amarok as its launch of honour this year, Volkswagen hit the highways just after Fieldays with a special lease offer on its very capable and versatile Crafter van.

Going into the fourth quarter of the year, and it doesn’t appear that much will happen in van-land, barring Toyota’s contribution of putting barn doors on the now well-accepted HiAce. We might see something happening at LDV soon since distribution of that brand has now changed, but that’s a story for another time.    

All told, the market is ever so slightly down by around 667 units year-to-date, but all things considered, this is hardly a catastrophe. Stock issues and shipping are still plaguing a number of manufacturers and these issues are contributing to the drop in registrations.

There would be a number of distributors saying “We could have sold more  if we could have got them,” which, while small comfort to those customers who wanted to replace their vehicles, shows signs of buoyancy in the market.