Electric Vehicle Sales in Australia & New Zealand Subdued

After massive 15% EV penetration in June, July’s numbers are a little down. It looks like Tesla is back to its first-month-of-the-quarter slump, only delivering a little more than 900 Model Ys and Model 3s combined (compared to almost 5,000 in June). BYD surged about 160% year on year, but couldn’t make up for the shortfall. Battery electric vehicles comprised 6.9% of the Australian market. That is 7,129 vehicles out of a total market of 104,244.

What about the poor cousins in the electric car race — plug-in hybrid EVs? Their star is on the rise with an 81% increase year on year. Over 4,000 were delivered to customers in Australia in July. Although, unlike June, BYD’s Shark 6 didn’t even make it to the top 20. We are at the mercy of the vagaries of shipping schedules.

Adding BEVs and PHEVs, we arrive at a penetration rate of approximately 10.5%. This seems to be about the average per month this year. The numbers are bit spongy because some carmakers are still not making them public, Xpeng being a prime example. We see the cars on the road and yet there is still no official data as how many have sold. They have announced that they will launch three more models by the end of the year and are expecting to sell up to 1,000 cars per month. That should make a difference.

The top ten battery electric vehicles for July 2025 were:

1. BYD Sealion 7 — 1,427 sold in June, 5,183 sold year to date
2. Tesla Model Y — 555 in June, 10,986 YTD
3. Geely EX5 — 490 in June — 2,335 YTD
4. Kia EV5 — 462 in June, 3,227 YTD
5. Tesla Model 3 — 362 in June, 4,077 YTD
6. BYD Atto 3 — 276 sales, 2,130 YTD
7. BYD Dolphin — 275 sales, 1,612 YTD
8. BYD Seal — 273 sales, 1,882 YTD
9. Kia EV3 — 251 sales, 1,404 YTD
10. MGS5 — 237 sales, 514 YTD

Some notable marques missing from the top ten: Polestar sold 86 model 4’s and 141 model 2’s; VW sold 149 of its recently released ID 4. Toyota only managed to sell 55 bZ4X. There appears to be a pivot on the part of Japanese carmakers and I am hoping that next year we will see many electric models coming to us from Japan. Just by the by: Japanese carmakers didn’t have a good July in Australia — Toyota down 4%, Mazda down 12%, Mitsubishi down 13%, Subaru down 9%, Nissan down 19%, and Suzuki down 35%. Is this a trend or just a one-month blip.

Remember, we are missing the numbers from Xpeng, some BMW models, the MG ZS, and the Chery Omoda E5.

These are the best-selling PHEVs for 2025 H1 (data to end of June — most up to date I could find):

1. BYD Shark 6 — 10,424 (new model)
2. BYD Sealion 6 — 4,375 (+807.7%)
3. Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV — 2,961 (+22.3%)
4. GWM Haval H6GT PHEV — 1,172 (new model)
5. Mazda CX-60 PHEV — 765 (+9.6%)

For July, the 10 top selling vehicles overall were powered by fossil fuels: four Toyotas, two Fords, two Hyundais, one Isuzu, and one Chery.

I reached across the ditch and asked James from EVDB for the latest data on EV sales in New Zealand. He informed me that he has launched a new website for Australia. Check it out here. James describes it as “a platform for lightning-fast comparison of all EVs in Australia, along with some market stats dashboards.”

In an ever-increasing ecosystem of electric vehicles, this website provides some great navigation tools. The page opens at the comparison tool, where you can set your search for price, shape, make, drive, and number of seats. Another tab gives you a real range calculator (current FUD flavour of the month is to say that EV makers are lying about range). Play with the slider and get different range readings for city and highway driving.

Then there are the cheat sheets: Do you want to know which ones go the fastest? What they can tow? How about the battery chemistry? Does it come with V2L? How efficient is it? So many variables to consider. Now you can cheat. My favourite, of course, are the market stats. They show both in numbers and visually the slow take-up of electric powertrains in Australia — the laggard of the global south.

Tesla is sending me emails with great offers — extra trade-in money, transfer of Full Self-Driving and Enhanced Autopilot, etc. All the dealers are trying to “move the metal” as more carmakers enter the Australian market. Mahindra is expected to launch affordable EVs down under in the near future.

Yesterday, a little bird told me that BYD will be taking orders for the Seagull towards the end of the year. The small city car is still in demand in Australia and I am expecting the Seagull/Dolphin Mini/Dolphin Surf/Atto 2 to be a good seller.

Back to James and his news of the New Zealand EV market. June numbers were robust. He told me: “… BEVs [reached] 9.3% of the new light vehicle market. That was predominantly due to a big delivery of the new Tesla Model Y. Tesla and BYD still dominate the market (year-to-date), with Polestar in third (off the back of some aggressive discounting earlier in the year). Things have remained slow in terms of new models coming to market — with NZ falling well behind Australia in the number of BEV models available. Many OEMs and importers are still wary of current market conditions.”

The top ten best-selling battery electric vehicles for June in NZ were:

1. Tesla Model Y — 407
2. BYD Atto 3 — 110
3. BYD Sealion 7 — 82
4. Tesla Model 3 — 50
5. BYD Dolphin — 37
6. Polestar 2 — 27
7. Kia EV3 — 24
8. Toyota bZ4X — 21
9. Honda e:N1 — 20
10. Mini Countryman — 19

“Among PHEVs, the BYD Shark ute had its strongest month yet _ taking 15% of the ute market. All that said, early indications are looking like July will be back to a more subdued market.” The Canon Alpha from Great Wall Motors has just arrived. It will be interesting to see if it adds to the numbers of PHEV utes sold, or takes a bite out of the Shark’s numbers. James was right about the dip in the market — here are the figures for July:

1. Tesla Model Y — 103
2. BYD Atto 3 — 95
3. Mini Countryman — 39
4. BYD Sealion 7 — 31
5. Kia EV5 — 29
6. Kia EV3 — 28
7. LDV eDeliver 3 — 25
8. Omoda E5 — 24
9. Tesla Model 3 — 21
10. Mercedes-Benz eVito — 17

The EV market penetration down in the global south is up and down. However, the trajectory is clear. The future of driving in Australia is electric and bright.