Australia’s EV fleet saw a huge surge in 2022 with 33,410 EVs being added during the year, doubling the country’s total fleet of electric vehicles, according to The Driven’s exclusive data and analysis.
According to The Driven’s data, there are now 67,695 EVs on Australian roads, barring some early retirements due to accident or other. The last 12 months alone accounted for 49.4% of the total fleet.
The biggest chunk comes, of course, from Tesla, with an estimated 44,000 EVs on the road in Australia. (Its exact numbers are not known because it did not publicly report its Australian sales numbers until earlier this year).
The interesting thing about that number is that it falls well short of the 50,000 target mentioned by Tesla chair Robyn Denholm earlier this year. Partly, this is due to production delays in China, and shipping delays which have pushed several thousand deliveries into the new year.
So what were some of the other trends which we noticed in the uptake during the year and what does that say about 2023 EV growth?
Tesla once again dominated the market in 2022, making up 19,594 sales according to data from FCAI. This meant that the number-one-selling EV brand globally made up 58.6% of the sales locally.
Tesla also grew its sales in Australia by 62% in 2022 over the previous year. This exceeds the company’s global sales expectations of 50% year-on-year and shows Australians consider Tesla as the go-to brand when it comes to EVs.
One of the other main reasons behind the EV uptake flourishing during the year included the rise of what we consider as affordable EV brands.
BYD, one of the newest brands in Australia delivered 6.3% of the total EV sales. That’s from about 3 months of deliveries and establishing multiple experience centres during the year across Australia.
Polestar was also another new brand that had its entire year of sales contribute to the total EV fleet. Over 1,500 Polestar 2s made it to our shores and have become a synonymous brand amongst the EV owners community.
Looking into 2023, the EV fleet is likely to surpass 125,000 EVs on Australian roads. That’s on the back of Tesla kicking the year off with price cuts, more traditional brands like Hyundai bringing greater numbers to Australia and most importantly, the continuous rise of affordable EV brands like BYD with even more affordable priced models.
This year is turning out to be a very exciting one for the decarbonising of our transport network. With newer EV models hitting our shores, Australians looking to make the switch will have many more options including those EVs that can tow.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.