Australian EV sales: How they're shaping up as 2024 nears its end

Electric vehicle (EV) sales continue to grow in Australia, but at nowhere near the pace of growth as hybrids and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs).

Data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries’ Zero & Low Emission Vehicles Report for the third quarter of 2024 shows 38,014 EVs have been sold this year to the end of the September.

This number excludes Tesla and Polestar as these brands stopped reporting their sales to the FCAI earlier this year, so what data included in this report for these brands is incomplete.

However, their sales figures are published by the Electric Vehicle Council, which lists year-to-date sales of 30,750 for Tesla and 1330 for Polestar.

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Add these figures with the FCAI data and there were 70,094 EVs sold over the nine-month period, up 6.6 per cent on the same period last year when 65,743 were sold.

Note the overall EV tallies reported by the FCAI in the ZLEV report include a few dozen commercial trucks: the Foton Mobility T5 (54 sales), Hyundai Mighty (12), and vehicles by SEA Electric (12).

In contrast, hybrid sales year-to-date are up 87.0 per cent, while PHEV sales are up 120.5 per cent.

Tesla remains by far the market leader in EV sales with 30,750 sales year-to-date, ahead of BYD (11,947 EV sales).

However, Tesla’s sales are down 19.08 per cent year-to-date, while BYD’s EV sales are up 37.53 per cent and its sales overall are up 74.4 per cent thanks to the introduction of its first PHEV model in Australia, the Sealion 6.

In the table below, we’ve listed the total sales of each EV to the end of September.

We’ve also included the percentage EVs account for of total model sales where there are other powertrain types within the same model line – for example, the Volvo XC40 is also offered with petrol power.

MORE: Tesla sales down by almost half as demand drops