11 January 2025

Canberra's favourite cars of 2024 revealed - but there's a conspicuous absence

| James Coleman
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Tesla only reported sales figures up to June last year, after spitting the dummy with the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI). Photo: James Coleman.

Canberrans bought fewer new cars in 2024 compared to 2023, according to new sales figures. Or did they?

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), based in Barton, has published data on exactly how many – and what type of – cars Australians bought over the course of last year.

But there’s a conspicuous absence.

Tesla, a top seller across the country and especially here in the ACT, fell out with the FCAI in June over what it labelled “demonstrably false” reporting on the Federal Government’s new emissions targets.

READ ALSO New EV sales continued to climb to record heights in 2024

The New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES), which comes into effect from 1 July, is said to encourage greater uptake of EVs by either through giving credits – or monetary fines – to car manufacturers based on the CO2 emissions of every new car they sell.

The FCAI warned this would slug many of Australia’s top-selling vehicles with price rises of up to $25,000 by 2029.

Tesla argued this was misleading, and the brand announced it would pull out of its membership with the FCAI come the end of the financial year on 30 June 2024, and no longer report its sales figures to the chamber.

The Tesla Model 3 still made it into the list of top 10 cars Canberrans bought in 2024, even with half a year of sales data missing.

The Tesla Model 3 still made it into the list of top 10 cars Canberrans bought in 2024, even with half a year of sales data missing. Photo: James Coleman.

This explains why the FCAI’s figures record a drop in the ACT’s total new vehicle sales from 18,531 in 2023 to 17,586 in 2024, and also why Tesla has slumped from our second favourite brand in 2023 to sixth in 2024.

The figures also show a 12 per cent downturn in the number of EVs sold in the ACT (2974 in 2024, compared to 3396 in 2023).

But taking into account figures from the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC), we know EVs enjoyed a greater national market share last year – up from 8.45 per cent in 2023 to 9.65 per cent in 2024 – and made up about 25 per cent of all new vehicle sales in the ACT.

READ ALSO It’s time to crown Region’s Car of the Year for 2024

Up to June, Tesla recorded 989 new vehicle sales, compared to 1802 over the entirety of 2023, so it’s safe to say the brand exceeded this figure in 2024.

The Model 3 and Model Y also still made their way into our top 10 cars for 2024, in third and fourth place, with 502 and 487 sales respectively.

Toyota easily remained Canberra’s favourite car brand (2944 new vehicle sales), followed by Mazda (1435), Hyundai (1112), Volkswagen (1007), Kia (1001), Tesla (989), Ford (970), BYD (869), Mitsubishi (846) and Subaru (774).

By models, the Toyota RAV4 remained in the lead for 2024 with 1105 sales across the year.

Toyota RAV4

The Toyota RAV4 Hybrid – still our favourite car. Photo: James Coleman.

The Ford Ranger has overtaken the Toyota HiLux as Canberra’s favourite ute, now in second place on the top 10 list with 592 sales.

The rest of the list is rounded out by the Mitsubishi Outlander (384), Toyota HiLux (362), Mazda CX-5 (322), Isuzu D-Max (313), Hyundai Kona (301) and Toyota Corolla (278).

As a category, SUVs still easily led the pack at 62 per cent of all new car sales.

Across passenger cars, SUVs, and light-commercial vehicles, petrol was also still the fuel type of choice at 40 per cent of sales (or 6,933 sales).

Hybrids were up by a whopping 71 per cent (3160 sales in 2024, compared to 1842 in 2023) and the figure for plug-in hybrids not far behind at 65 per cent (926 sales in 2024, over 560 in 2023).

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Andrew Denny4:08 pm 12 Jan 25

A sensible argument @Acton until the last line and then your true colours shone through. I have an EV (city hack, work school run, shopping kids sport charged of home solar) and a hybrid – for transparency. Jump back in your RAM 1500 @Acton

Capital Retro1:19 pm 13 Jan 25

So Andrew, if you are totally reliant on home solar that means the tasks you nominated that you use your EV for are all done at night.

In reply to Acton and his EV hit piece. My experience. 50 years of personal owning and driving. A career that entailed 34 years of driving a variety of cars daily by various brands. Four years owning and driving a BEV. 70k+ km of driving it. Never not driven where we wanted to when we wanted to during those years. Never had charging issues. Best vehicle I’ve owned or driven. Never going back to what I now recognise as ‘clunker tech ‘.

Kathleen Downes4:38 am 12 Jan 25

Not being able to track new Tesla car sales can be done in other ways – car registrations, insurance statistics etc

I remain a staunch petrol engine heretic, unconverted by EVangelists.
Here is an article about an EV driver’s experience:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-10/ev-owners-charging-infrastructure-inadequate/104797428

EVs evoke range anxiety: will I make it to the next charger, where is the charger, will it be working, how long is the queue, how long will it take to recharge, what can I do while it’s recharging, should I plan accomodation near a charger…
He should have stuck with a petrol car, which takes 5 minutes to refuel.
EVs are best for pretentious, self-indulgent virtue signaling, not road trips.

I did a lot of driving in the outback when I was younger. Believe me, range anxiety did exist for petrol engines then. We all have to start somewhere.

@Acton
Yawn – so don’t buy an EV. Simples.

A good thing he did not try driving an EV about twenty years ago when there were no rechargers on the highway at all. Petrol pumps were not so common in the 19th century either. You’ll catch up.

Agree, own a disposable vehicle then own an EV.

But not the poor ranges of EV’s once you load them with passengers and luggage. Avenal going north from Melbourne and Goulburn going south from Sydney. At the Goulburn stop most EV batteries are all but zero range left. Not quite so bad at the Avenal stop in Victoria as most EV’s there may still have 50-60k of range left. My ICE Jeep can go from Sydney to Melbourne without stopping once. Not an EV fan and never will be.

Not interested in ” catching up” Denizkoy. By all means buy your EV but do not force them on Australians that don’t like them or want them.

Not to mention routinely carrying a spare can of fuel, an extra spare wheel, and citizen band radio.

Capital Retro8:15 pm 12 Jan 25

It wasn’t that long ago that trading hours for fossil-fuel service stations were regulated basically to daylight hours weekly and no trading on weekends or public holidays. That made a lot of planning necessary for a trip down the Hume but we still managed it.
I commented a little while ago that two EV chargers had been commissioned at the BP Chisholm but I hadn’t seen any cars there yet.
I think the problem is the availability of electricity or more likely, the capacity of existing cabling to deliver it to “fast” chargers, a problem that is going to get worse and more expensive to rectify.
Australia isn’t suited to EVs. We have already tried in vain to make it “A Better Place”.

This “forcing” of which you speak, Rob, is the same way people were “forced” to buy better cars since they were first built. It may happen all around your rock. There will be a few shags on other rocks. You can wave to them while uttering mournful cries about the past and the cruelty of changing tides.

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