Electric vehicle sales on track to overtake last year’s total by June

Plug-in hybrid sales are up too.

Sales of electric vehicles in Australia are on track to eclipse 2020 figures by the middle of this year, according to latest data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI).

A total of 1255 electric vehicles have been reported as sold to the end of April, a 128.4 per cent increase over the same period last year. If the current trajectory of growth is maintained, Australians will have bought more EVs by the end of June than they did in all of 2020.

Australians bought a reported 1769 electric vehicles last year.

Electric SUVs are doing the heavy lifting, with reported sales of 691 (237.1 increase). That’s being led by the MG ZS EV with 434 sales reported to the end of April, or 62.8 per cent of the electric SUV segment.

Passenger car growth continued the trend, with 549 reported sales to the end of April, an increase of 98.2 per cent over the same time last year. Porsche’s new Taycan accounted for 273 sales, or almost 50 per cent (49.7 per cent) of the passenger car segment.

It should be noted these numbers do not include any Tesla cars and SUVs, while the US company continues with its policy of not reporting sales to the FCAI. However, data obtained by CarAdvice earlier this year confirmed Tesla accounted for 3430 sales in 2020, bringing the national total to 5199, or 0.56 per cent of the new car market.

Sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles also continue to grow in 2021 with total reported sales of 877 so far this year, an increase of 75 per cent over the same period last year. A total of 1685 PHEVs were reported as sold in 2020, with two-thirds of those sales SUVs (1282).