VFACTS January 2025: Slow start to slower year

William StopfordCarExpert

Wed, 5 February 2025 9:26AM

Deliveries of new cars in January were down slightly as 2025 is expected to be a softer year for sales, despite the glut of new brands entering the Australian market.

According to VFACTS data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), augmented with Polestar and Tesla sales data from the Electric Vehicle Council, a total of 87,625 vehicles were delivered in January 2025.

This was a 2.4 per cent drop compared to the same month last year.

While 2024 was a record year for new-car sales, the market weakened in the second half and 2025 is expected to see a continuation of this trend.

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New-car deliveries were down in every state and territory bar Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Hybrid sales were up 51.5 per cent and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) by 88.5 per cent, though EV sales were down by 21.7 per cent thanks to significant drops for Tesla and BYD.

There’s still no sign of new EV brands Deepal, Xpeng and Zeekr in the monthly VFACTS report, all of which started deliveries late in 2024.

However, newcomer Leapmotor reported 22 deliveries in January, while JAC reported 204 deliveries of its diesel-powered T9 ute.

Also missing from the January tally was the BYD Shark 6, of which customer deliveries commenced during the month.

“Despite having no Shark 6s available for test drives, our order write exceeded expectations, making it one of our strongest months ever – particularly for Shark 6 and our EV models – driven by the introduction of MY25 pricing and the Essentials range,” said a spokesperson for the brand.

“An administrative error meant we didn’t meet reporting requirements, but we’re pleased to have 450 Sharks on the road, which will be counted in February.”

Brands

Toyota was in the top spot as usual, with Mazda pushing back into the second spot after finishing third overall in 2024. Ford rounded out the podium.

All three of these top three brands posted modest sales increases over January 2024.

The rest of the top 10, however, is rather different from how it stood in January 2024.

In that month, Toyota, Mazda and Ford also took the podium spots, but were followed by Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Kia, MG, Isuzu Ute, GWM and Subaru in that order.

In January 2025, however, the order was Toyota, Mazda, Ford, Kia, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, MG, GWM, Nissan and Subaru.

Hyundai has slumped by 11.1 per cent and Mitsubishi by 3.9 per cent, allowing Kia to push past despite essentially flat sales.

Isuzu Ute has dropped out of the top 10 to 11th position due to a 23.6 per cent decline year-over-year, while Nissan has stormed back into the top 10 with growth of 12.4 per cent.

One brand to watch out for is Chery. It has continued to grow rapidly since returning here in 2023, and sat in 13th place overall with a huge 152 per cent increase.

While BMW was Australia’s top-selling luxury brand in 2024, in January 2025 Mercedes-Benz held that honour even if you don’t include the Mercedes-Benz Vans lineup.

Looking at the car lineup alone, it delivered 1422 vehicles, an improvement of 26 per cent, while BMW delivered 1401 vehicles and was down 12.5 per cent.

BYD had a significant year-over-year drop of 48.5 per cent, which the company attributes to port delays resulting in limited stock.

“January is traditionally a softer month due to the holiday period,” a spokesperson added.

Models

The Toyota RAV4 may have fallen short of being Australia’s best-selling vehicle in 2024, but it took the top spot in January 2025… and by a comfortable margin, too.

RAV4 deliveries were up by 129.6 per cent to 5076 units, well ahead of the second-place Ford Ranger (4254 deliveries, down 10.4 per cent).

From there it was another big drop to the Toyota HiLux (3302 deliveries, down 19.3 per cent).

Toyota Prado deliveries were up by 63.1 per cent thanks to the recent introduction of a new generation.

Segments

Some vehicles jumped to other VFACTS segments this month.

The “small” Cupra Ateca… Credit: CarExpert

…and “medium” Skoda Karoq Credit: CarExpert

For example, the Volkswagen T-Roc and Toyota C-HR are now classified as small SUVs over $45,000, while Cupra’s Formentor and Ateca are now classified as small and not medium SUVs.

The move of the Cupras may be due to the upcoming launches of the mid-sized Terramar and Tavascan SUVs. However, it does make for an odd sight, as the Ateca is a small SUV despite being almost identical dimensionally to its “medium” Skoda Karoq platform-mate.

In other moves, Peugeot’s 2008 is now a small SUV over $45,000 and its 3008 is now a medium SUV over $60,000.

The small passenger car segment is now split into vehicles above and below $45,000 instead of $40,000 like last year.

The sports car market is now split into below $90,000 and above $90,000 (instead of $80,000), while the segment for sports cars over $200,000 is unchanged albeit now includes the Lexus LC.

Micro cars: Kia Picanto (616), Fiat 500 (30)
Light cars under $30,000: MG 3 (1151), Mazda 2 (524), Suzuki Swift (345)
Light cars over $30,000: Mini Cooper (134), Hyundai i20 (86), Volkswagen Polo (86)
Small cars under $45,000: Toyota Corolla (1583), Mazda 3 (1026), Hyundai i30 (849)
Small cars over $45,000: MG 4 (440), Volkswagen Golf (293), BMW 1 Series (227)
Medium cars under $60,000: Toyota Camry (488), Mazda 6 (136), Skoda Octavia (57)
Medium cars over $60,000: Tesla Model 3 (274), BMW i4 (108), Mercedes-Benz C-Class (103)
Large cars under $70,000: Skoda Superb (9)
Large cars over $70,000: BMW 5 Series (64), Mercedes-Benz E-Class (28), Porsche Taycan (14)
Upper large cars: Mercedes-Benz S-Class (10), Porsche Panamera (6), BMW 7 Series (5)
People movers under $70,000: Kia Carnival (589), Hyundai Staria (88), Ford Tourneo (35)
People movers over $70,000: Lexus LM (26), Mercedes-Benz V-Class (24), Mercedes-Benz Vito Tourer/eVito Tourer (13)
Sports cars under $90,000: Ford Mustang (266), Subaru BRZ (73), Toyota GR86 (68)
Sports cars over $90,000: Mercedes-Benz CLE (47), BMW 2 Series Coupe (45), BMW 4 Series two-door range (45)
Sports cars over $200,000: Porsche 911 (22), Lamborghini two-door range (14), Mercedes-AMG GT (10)

Light SUVs: Mazda CX-3 (1608), Toyota Yaris Cross (849), Suzuki Jimny (712)
Small SUVs under $45,000: Mitsubishi ASX (1304), Hyundai Kona (1301), GWM Haval Jolion (1286)
Small SUVs over $45,000: Volkswagen T-Roc (497), Audi Q3 (279), Volvo XC40 (237)
Medium SUVs under $60,000: Toyota RAV4 (5076), Mitsubishi Outlander (2090), Mazda CX-5 (1872)
Medium SUVs over $60,000: Tesla Model Y (465), Mazda CX-60 (408), Lexus NX (387)
Large SUVs under $80,000: Toyota Prado (2847), Ford Everest (1679), Isuzu MU-X (786)
Large SUVs over $80,000: Land Rover Defender (164), BMW X5 (147), Lexus RX (116)
Upper large SUVs under $120,000: Nissan Patrol (621), Toyota LandCruiser (413), Land Rover Discovery (23)
Upper large SUVs over $120,000: Lexus GX (95), BMW X7 (66), Lexus LX (49)