People viewing displays at the Everything Electric electric vehicle show at Melbourne showgrounds, in Melbourne, Friday, November 14, 2025. (AAP Image/James Ross) NO ARCHIVING
EV sales rebounded in December, reversing the softer results seen through the final quarter of 2025. During the month, EV sales came in at 10.2% of the total market, up from 9.1% in November.
The rebound was driven by a strong month from BYD, which delivered 4,113 EVs in December, pushing Tesla off the top spot. Tesla recorded 2,585 sales over the same period.
BYD also led the model rankings in December, selling almost as many units as Tesla’s both Model 3 and Model Y combined.
The result was underpinned by aggressive cashback incentives, which helped drive late-year demand among Australian buyers.
The latest data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) shows that 7,615 battery electric vehicles were sold in Australia in December.
Total vehicles for the month came in just over 100,000 vehicles vehicles sold during the month, tallying up to 101,513.
Most major EV makers had multiple incentives during December, which contributed to these sales and this is expected to continue moving into 2026.
The data was separated with two suppliers, the FCAI shared 7,615 EVs – and those supplied by the Electric Vehicle Council – 2,769 sales – from Tesla and Polestar.
EV Sales Breakdown – December 2025
| FCAI vFacts | 7,615 |
| EVC (Polestar + Tesla) | 2,769 |
| EV Sales Total (FCAI + EVC) | 10,384 |
| Total Vehicle Sales (FCAI + EVC) | 101,513 |
EV sales over 2024 were just over 91,293, and 2025 shows 103,269 electric cars made it onto the road so far this year.
Total yearly battery EV sales accounted for over 8.3% in 2025, up from 7.4% in 2024.
In December, PHEV sales saw an increase from previous months, with 5,919 PHEVs sold during the month.
Looking into the EV models that made up the top 5 EV sales, BYD Sealion 7 saw 2,546 sales, Tesla Model Y followed with 1,998 sales.
Tesla’s Model 3, the recently launched BYD Atto 2 and BYD’s Seal made up the remainder of top 5 with sales of 587, 531 and 413 respectively.
Other notable mentions in the sales data for December is BYD Atto 1, Australia’s most affordable EV, which had it’s first month of 88 sales.
The best-selling EVs in December 2025 were:
The Driven is waiting to hear back from various manufacturers regarding sales of some EV models, and this will be updated once they are received.
FCAI CEO Tony Weber said:“Many consumers are choosing hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles as a practical transition toward lower emissions. While the industry is investing heavily in battery electric technology, uptake ultimately depends on consumer readiness and the availability of reliable public recharging infrastructure,”.
“The growth of battery electric vehicle market share has been anaemic, increasing by 1.1 percentage points over the past two years, well below earlier projections,”.
With BYD and a growing list of new entrants continuing to price aggressively, 2026 is shaping up as another strong year for battery-electric vehicle sales.
See full details of EV sales for each month of the year in our database here.
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.
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Are we still running with the same narrative that xpeng sold 175 cars last month?
Somehow the article has missed the 2025 yearly BEV totals:
Tesla 28,856
BYD 25,287
The article is predominantly about December sales despite references to yearly figures.
Interestingly, from the other article (Australian electric vehicle sales by month in 2025 – by model and by brand), Geely EX5 sold more than all BYD models except the Sealion 7 over 2025, coming in at number 5 based on the figures presented so far.
BYD is really struggling to grow and that is with its cashbacks, refreshed models and other incentives. 53% of BYDs sold here were the Sealion 7
I'll call BS on that!
What your saying is even after ev growth 90% of vehicles sold are not ev
An unsurprisingly small number of their smallest, and cheapest, cars were sold in the months they were available.
I don't see either of those models hitting top 10 sold in 2026, despite all the noise by the few that say that's what 'we' want.
Ummm ... there were 531 BYD Atto 2s sold last month. That's not a small number.
We know a small bubble who will never own an EV like to make negative comments on EV articles, for personal or commercial reasons. Fact is 10% of new car sales is a good chunk of buyers and 100,000 people with new EVs is significant. It’s you and about 10 other regular negative people/bots vs 100,000 people who put their money on the table.
true.
Businesses buy cars which are included in the total, and they are probably not going to go out of their way to install the charging infrastructure or apply for a grant to get it paid for. Either way the path of "less resistance" is buy ICE, unfortunately.
BYD Sealion 7 was the 4th best selling vehicle in December.
The only familiar car brands selling competitive EVs are Kia and prestige brand BMW. Mazda, Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Isuzu, Subaru, Honda, had a few expensive compliance cars during 2025 at best. Most people look to familiar brands with a big brand name when looking for a new car. It’s a big purchase.
Hyundai EVs start at $40k vs $24k for the BYD product in a similar segment. Until recently an BZ4X was $30k more than an equivalent RAV4, Lexus pricing. Imagine what would happen if familiar brands actually had competitive product.
If you think about it 10% of the market, while significant, is also amazing given all the new names, with BYD even gaining a degree of trust and recognition despite being a Johnny come lately brand. Is Geely on the same path? Imagine what would happen if more competitive high volume brand product came to market, or maybe it’s just going to be gradual acceptance of the new brands, assuming they can do an equal or better job providing good service to buyers. Personally I have found Tesla great in that regard. Parts, service, technical support, attitude of customer facing staff, price, timely service, have all been good (caveat Elon).
Hours later and the title of this article is still wrong, Obviously, no-one is paying attention at TD...
Still getting EVs confused with BEVs. EVs are BEVs and PHEVs..
Thus EVs had a massive year and grew over 30%. To over 156K. The Australian BEV to PHEV mix of EVs now roughly follow the World Sales mix of 2 BEV to 1 PHEV.
The real story is fossil fueled vehicles has another terrible, horrible no good year.
And EVs probably would have had an even better year had it not been for Teslas troubles.