Car sales boom in Australia, all of them giant gas guzzlers

In the midst of an economic slump and a ban on international travel, Australians have reacted not by hunkering down in their homes and saving their pennies for a brighter day, but by buying more cars. Lots of them, and nearly all of them big, petrol- and diesel-guzzling monstrosities. 

And in the midst of this spending spree – which saw the number of cars sold rise for the first time in 31 months – did they also splurge on the electric vehicles that might help lower our appalling emissions (per capita)? No, they did not. Sales of plug-in electric vehicles actually fell, taking a truly woeful percentage of this booming market – just under 0.1 percent (that figure does not include Teslas, because that company does not play ball with the people who collate sales figures, known as VFACT).

Read which Australian postcodes Tesla are most popular in.

In the month of November, one of the hottest Novembers we’ve ever had, by the way, Australians actually bought more cars than they did in the same month in 2019 – some 10,497 more, for a total of 95,205 – when life, and the economy, were both considerably more rosy.

It’s a staggering spending achievement, when you think about it, and one that had car makers rejoicing. 

While the rest of the world is seeing a noticeable increase in the sale of EVs, Australians went out and bought more SUVs. Indeed, our top-selling car was the Toyota HiLux, just ahead of the Ford Ranger. Toyota’s Prado and LandCruiser, even bigger and heavier machines, had their best sales months ever recorded in this country. Nissan Patrols also flew off the shelves in record numbers. Mazda’s new BT-50 ute also went gangbusters. 

And while some countries are moving to ban the sale of diesel vehicles – or at least keep them out of city centres –  because their nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide emissions are so noxious, Australians are buying more of them than ever. 

While it would be nice to hope that Tesla’s figures were also boosted by this spending splurge – and the Tesla Model 3 is believed to be our biggest-selling EV – sales of the next best performers; the Hyundai Kona Electric, Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Ioniq Electric, Mercedes-Benz EQC, Renault Zoe, Mini Cooper Electric, Jaguar I-Pace, BMW i3 and the brand new Audi e-Tron, were so far from the top of the sales charts as to be statistical blips.