Breaking: Australian EV Sales increase, but drop to 6.4% of new vehicles in August 2023

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries have released their latest VFACTS data for August 2023. It’s fair to say, this wasn’t exactly normal month. While we’ve seeing a strong trend of electric vehicle accounting for an increased percentage of new vehicle sales month on month, in August, EVs dropped to 6.4% from 7.0 in July.

The total number of electric vehicle sales has grown in raw numbers from 6,846 in July to 6,984.

The reduction as a percentage is a result of more ICE sales, with a total growth in new vehicle sales of 15.4% compared to the same period in 2022. Australians took delivery of 109,966 new vehicles in August 2023.

While we’ve seen Tesla’s Model Y account for the 2nd highest sales numbers for a nameplate, this month, the electric mid-sized SUV fell to position 8 with 2,314 units. The Model 3 sold just 995 units, for a total of 3,309 Tesla vehicles sold into Australia this month.

The BYD Atto 3 sold 803 units, while other popular EVs like the Polestar 2 sold just 225 vehicles, the Kia EV6 sold 243 and Kia sold Ioniq 5 sold 105, while the newer Ioniq 6 sold 46. MG’s new low-cost MG5 sold 338 units.

The leader of the sales charts again is a ute, the Toyota Hi-lux with 5,762 units, followed closely by the Ford Range, Toyota RAV4 and Isuzu Ute D-Max.

If we include hybrids, and look at all low emissions technologies more than 1 in 6 vehicles sold in the month of August featured low emissions technologies.

It is likely the choice of consumers to continue to opt for ICE vehicles is a result of up-front purchase prices remaining high, a lack of supply for the EV models we do have and a lack of serious EV Ute options.

The transition to EVs won’t be helped by Tesla’s recent decision to discontinue the Model 3 until January 2024 when the refreshed Model 3 will arrive from Shanghai.