Australia's favourite new car revealed: 2024 Toyota RAV4 smashes key rivals the Mazda CX-5, Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson

For the first time in a long time a ute isn’t the favourite vehicle in Australia.

The Toyota RAV4 mid-size SUV was the best selling model in April with 5,857 examples finding a new home.

That result was good enough to knock the Ford Ranger (5569 sales) off its perch and relegate the Toyota HiLux (4693) to a lowly third position.

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It was another strong result for Australia’s new car market as 97,202 vehicles were delivered in the past month, which is a record for April.

Australia is on track for a record yearly new car sales result, with more than 50,000 more new cars landing in driveways through the first four months of this year than in 2023.

Despite the RAV4's first spot, Australia’s love affair with utes and big four-wheel-drives continued with the Ford Everest - which is based on the Ranger ute - coming in fourth with 2400 sales.

The Isuzu D-Max ute, and its 4WD equivalent MU-X, notched up 2380 and 1876 sales respectively.

The Ford Ranger is still Australia's favourite ute in 2024.

April gives us a hint that Toyota’s supply problems, which have been affecting the brand for years, might be coming to an end as it carved off a generous 21.4 per cent portion of the sales pie chart, or more than one in five new car sales.

The Toyota Corolla and Camry both reentered the top 10 after a long hiatus in a buoyant result for Australia’s dominant car brand whose sales are up 45 per cent for the year.

April saw some usual heavy hitters drop out of the top 10 sales list.

The Mazda CX-5’s 1629 sales weren’t good enough to break into the top 10. The 1548 Hyundai Tucsons and the 1699 Kia Sportages sold saw them on the wrong side of the glass looking in.

The Tesla Model 3 rivalling BYD Seal continues to gain new buyers.

Ford’s stellar April performance on the back of Ranger and Everest sales has pushed the Blue Oval up the podium into the silver medal position, knocking Mazda off its long held number two ranking.

Mitsubishi’s strong performance this year continued with more than 5300 sales in the past month on the back of strong Outlander SUV sales and the new Triton ute arriving in showrooms.

Kia continued to shows up its big brother Hyundai, with the K-brand moving about 1500 more cars in April, earning it a 2000-plus vehicle lead in year to date sales.

Tesla had a down month by its recent standards. The American electric car maker delivered 2077 vehicles in the past month, with a nearly equal split of Model 3 and Model Ys sold.

The Ford Everest notched up impressive sales in April.

Chinese maker BYD continued to go off in the sales charts. It sold more than 1400 of its electric cars putting deliveries up more than 83 per cent year-on-year. The Tesla Model 3 rivalling Seal was its best performer.

Electric car sales were down about five per cent in April, mainly due to a slower month from Tesla, but hybrid sales were up an astounding 194.5 per cent on the back of Toyota's strong figures.

Best selling vehicles in April

Best selling brands in April