Sales of hybrid vehicles continued to exceed those of electric vehicles in the last three months of 2024 despite losing market share amid a slowdown in car sales across the nation, according to the Australian Automobile Association (AAA).
While the market share of hybrids fell from 16.7% in the September quarter to 14.83% in the December quarter, they still outsold EVs, which increased their market share to 7.42% of sales – up from 6.59%.
The new data comes in the AAA EV Index online data dashboard, which analyses all new light vehicle sales across the country. Its latest quarterly update shows the December quarter 2024 had the lowest light vehicle sales since the January quarter of 2023.
Hybrid sales fell in all states and territories, except for Tasmania. Nationally, they were down 11.73% from Q3 2024 (from 48,282 to 42,618).
“This reduction of 5664 vehicles was largely due to weaker sales for Toyota, which were down 6337 sales on Q3,” says the AAA.
The figures cover the final three months before the federal government implemented its New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, which is designed to drive greater sales of EVs and more fuel-efficient vehicles. The scheme took effect last month, and reporting of its effects will start in July.
Trends
There have been “significant” quarterly fluctuations in car sales over the past two years, according to the AAA. This, it says, produces a clear trend of growth for hybrids but also indicates availability of Toyota models might have a significant impact on the hybrid market.
The AAA says battery electric vehicles (BEV) sales and market share seem to have peaked for now, with both metrics still below their Q2 2024 records.
“The third and fourth quarters of 2024 featured lower total car sales than any of the preceding five quarters,” says the industry body.
“In the first half of 2023, BEVs outsold hybrids, but since then hybrids have outsold BEVs in six consecutive quarters. Hybrids are now outselling BEVs even in the ACT, which has long been Australia’s strongest BEV market.”
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) sales are growing strongly, according to the AAA, but from a low base.
PHEV sales are strongest in the ACT (6.35% market share in Q4 2024). Tasmania and the NT had the lowest Q4 PHEV market shares – 1.32% and 1.48% respectively. The five largest states had PHEV market shares between 2.48% (in Queensland) and 2.8% (in Victoria), in line with the national market share of 2.63%.
Fuel types and vehicle types – Q4 2024
Medium SUVs remain Australia’s most popular vehicle segment, according to the AAA.
“They dominate the hybrid, BEV and PHEV markets, but among ICE [internal combustion engines] vehicles they are the fourth-most popular segment behind 4WD utes, small SUVs and large SUVs,” it says.
In the December quarter, more than half (69.95%) of new SUVs sold were ICE. About a fifth (19.34%) were hybrids; 6.61% were BEVs; and 4.1% were PHEVs. Of the 7556 PHEVs sold in the December quarter, 5962 (or 78.9%) were medium SUVs.
ICE vehicles still dominated all market segments except for medium cars, with 4812 (58.05%) being BEVs, 22.52% ICE, 18.78% hybrids and 0.64% were PHEVs.
ICE also accounted for most sales of small cars (67.67% market share in the December quarter) and large cars (64.99%).
More than 99% of utes and vans sold were ICE vehicles.
