New car sales 2025: Australia’s best-selling vehicles revealed

Key points 

• Australians bought more new cars than ever before in 2025 with 1,241,037 new cars sold
• The Ford Ranger was the #1 best seller across 2025, beating the Toyota HiLux and RAV4
• Toyota continues to dominate as Austraila’s #1 best-selling brand for the 24th year in a row
• BYD was a big winner in 2025 and pushed Nissan out of the Top 10

Car sales figures for the full year of 2025 are in, with Japanese carmaker Toyota remaining the undisputed leader in Australia, while Chinese manufacturer BYD gained serious ground, jumping into the top ten and pushing Nissan out. 

Total vehicle sales jumped to 1,241,037 in 2025, a slight increase versus 2024 (1,124,712), meaning the market set a new all-time record for the third year in a row. 

The Ford Ranger was again the most popular vehicle in the country – also for the third year in a row – with the Blue Oval’s dual-cab ute edging out the Toyota HiLux and RAV4 for the top spot on the podium. 

Hybrid sales increased 15.3 per cent, with 199,133 sales representing 16 per cent of the market, while plug-in hybrid (PHEV) sales more than doubled to 53,484, or 4.3 per cent of the market. Battery electric sales surpassed 134,498, accounting for 10 per cent of the market, up from 7.4 per cent in 2024. 

This was reflected in the top ten mix. Both 2024 and 2025 saw the hybrid Toyota RAV4 SUV atop the sales pile, but in 2024 it was joined by five utes and four internal combustion engine (ICE) SUVs, while in 2025 it shared the top 10 with four utes, three ICE SUVs and – for the first time – two all-electric SUVs.

Winners & losers in 2025 

Toyota sold just shy of 240,000 vehicles in 2026, with Ford, Mazda, Kia, and Hyundai rounding out the top five and kicking Mitsubishi down from fifth to sixth place. GWM jumped from number ten in 2024 to number seven. 

The breakout winner for the year was undoubtedly Chinese EV juggernaut BYD, which now has nine electric (EV) and PHEVs on the market and another soon to land. It increased its sales by 250 per cent from 2024 – making decent headway on its 2026 goal to become a top seller in 2026 – to nab eighth place ahead of Isuzu and MG.  

This pushed Nissan out of the top ten altogether, echoing a decline in sales both in its home market of Japan and globally.

TABLE: Top 10 best-selling makes in 2025 

TABLE: Top 10 best-selling models in 2025 

EV winners & losers in 2025 

On the fully electric side of things, Tesla remained all-electric leader despite a 25 per cent drop in sales, as the brand struggled against its CEO’s reputational dive and BYD’s growing stable.  

While BYD came in the overall top ten with 50,000-plus unit sales, its 50/50 EV and PHEV sales mix meant it didn't quite pip Tesla's post on the all-electric front. Whereas the US automaker sold 28,856 battery electric cars in 2025, BYD sold 25,287.

TABLE: Top 10 best-selling EVs in 2025 

Top-selling cars in Australia – December 2025

Aside from the notable rise of the BYD Sealion 7, the top ten for the month of December 2025 was populated with the usual suspects – the Toyota RAV4 held prime position with 6038 sales, an 18 per cent increase over December 2024. Silver went to the Ford Ranger, while the Toyota Hilux took a 21.3 per cent dive in sales to come in third.  

As with its annual results, the BYD Sealion 7 proved popular at number four, followed by the Ford Everest, Isuzu Ute D-MAX, Haval Jolion, and Mazda CX-5. The Tesla Model Y and Chery Tiggo 4 Pro were equal tenth, with 1998 sales apiece. 

TABLE: Top 10 best-selling vehicles in December 2025 

This article has been updated to add Tesla Model Y at number ten for 2025 YTD sales.