EVs outsell petrol cars again in Australia as BYD, Tesla and Geely lead September charts

Australia’s new car market reached a symbolic threshold in September, with battery electric vehicles pulling off a second straight month of outselling petrol-only cars. According to figures from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, fully electric models captured 24.2 per cent of all new vehicle sales, a hair below August’s record 24.8 per cent but still enough to keep roughly one in four buyers plugging in.

The momentum is not a one-off blip. Year-to-date through September, BEVs accounted for 18.9 per cent of the overall market, more than double the 8.1 per cent recorded at the same point in 2025. Total September EV volume settled at 26,087 units, edging out petrol-powered cars at 26,018 and diesels at 25,173. Add 10,072 plug-in hybrids and another 17,843 mild hybrids, and “electrified” vehicles collectively finished the month narrowly ahead of pure combustion.

Tesla’s Model Y kept its crown as the country’s top-selling EV with 4,476 deliveries, though it slipped below the Ford Ranger and Toyota RAV4 in the all-comers ranking. China’s challengers filled much of the rest of the leaderboard: the BYD Sealion 7 took second among EVs at 2,687 units, while Geely’s EX5 landed third on 2,008 and the freshly launched EX2 added 1,211. Omoda Jaecoo’s J5 (1,754) and Zeekr’s 7X (1,628) also cracked five figures of hundreds, and the Tesla Model 3 recovered to 1,178 after a sluggish start to the year. The Electric Vehicle Council put Tesla’s September total at 5,654, noting the figure did not follow the brand’s usual end-of-quarter delivery pattern.

FCAI acting chief executive Dianne O’Hara said the numbers demonstrated that the switch toward electrified transport is being sustained rather than fading. Whether that pace holds, industry voices argue, hinges on the federal government’s New Vehicle Emissions Standard, which has widened model availability and pushed prices down. Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers have been reported to be lobbying for softer settings, but Mazda said the strong reception for its own new EVs left it at ease with the existing framework.

On the demand side, the National Automotive Leasing and Salary Packaging Association credits the Electric Car Discount — the fringe benefits tax exemption for qualifying EVs — with putting electric driving within reach of ordinary workers. NALSPA chief executive Rohan Martin said households would collectively have saved an estimated $609 million on fuel by Christmas, with the strongest take-up in the outer suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. NALSPA is urging the Albanese government to keep the scheme running from April 2027, pointing to record rooftop solar and home battery installations in the first half of 2026 as further evidence that home charging can stretch those savings even further.