Electric cars outsold petrol cars in Australia for the first time in August. Battery-electric vehicles hit 27,078 sales, or 24.9% of the new-car market, ahead of both petrol (25,824) and diesel (23,608).
The Tesla Model Y topped every model on sale. But look past it, and Australia’s EV record is almost entirely a Chinese one.
An EV record, and combustion becomes the minority
BEV sales were up 171% year-over-year, according to VFACTS and Electric Vehicle Council data. Add hybrids and plug-in hybrids, and electrified vehicles took 51.8% of the market. It’s the first month combustion-only cars have been in the minority in Australia.
Europe crossed that line last year, when EVs outsold petrol across the EU even as Tesla’s sales collapsed. Australia is now on the same path, and getting there faster.
The overall market grew 4.9% to 108,760 vehicles. EVs did the heavy lifting.
The eight best-selling EVs are all built in China
Here’s what the record actually looks like, model by model:
Seven of the eight top sellers are Chinese brands: BYD, Geely, Zeekr, and Chery’s Jaecoo. The BYD Sealion 7 alone moved 2,213 units and finished sixth across the entire market, ahead of household nameplates. The Geely EX5 jumped more than 385% year-over-year.
The other two are Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3. Except they’re not really exceptions. Tesla builds every right-hand-drive car it sells in Australia at Giga Shanghai, so all eight of the country’s best-selling EVs rolled off a Chinese production line.
We flagged this shift in July, when Australia’s seven best-selling EVs were already all Chinese, even Tesla’s. A month later, it’s the full top eight.
Tesla wins the month, but BYD wins on breadth
The Model Y sold 6,414 units, up 176% year-over-year, and it was Tesla’s third monthly sales win of 2026. As a brand, Tesla climbed to third with 7,685 sales, up 163%.
BYD sat right above it in second with 8,231, up 68.8%, and it got there with a far wider lineup than Tesla’s two-car range. BYD outsold Tesla 10-to-1 in Australia back in January. The gap has closed as Tesla recovered, but the Chinese brand is still ahead.
Toyota led all brands with 19,712 sales, down 5.2%. The legacy volume brands, Toyota, Mazda and Kia, are all sliding while the Chinese EV makers post double- and triple-digit growth.
Electrek’s Take
Top comment by AMortalDefiant
Preventing the rapid adoption of EVs is precisely why we have the tariffs in the US. They're counter-productive, as they allow US automakers to become complacent, placing them on defense, and never being the ones to innovate, or take chances. This is all antithetical to our supposed values of a "free market"; I think we can all admit by now that that was a complete joke. What dictates our markets to us in the US are the ultra wealthy, who want nothing to change, as that could risk them a microscopic percentage of their net worth. They've spend decades carefully curating what we will can, and cannot buy - from them. They won't let that change now. The US will be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity. We willingly gave up everything to the Chinese without a fight.
This is a real milestone. But this is a Chinese EV boom. Seven of the eight top sellers are Chinese brands. The other two, the Teslas, are built in Shanghai. So the cars powering Australia’s EV record are, without exception, made in China. Toyota, Mazda, and Kia are going backward while BYD, Geely, and Zeekr add new nameplates every few months and take their share.
Australia has almost no tariffs on Chinese EVs, unlike the US or the EU. That’s why Australians get cheap, capable EVs, and why adoption is moving this fast. It also makes Australia the clearest preview anywhere of what an open, tariff-free EV market actually produces.
Opening up to Chinese EVs will result in a faster phase-out of combustion engines. Autralia is the proof.
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