Browse over 9,000 car reviews

A growing new-car force? Australians bought more than 120,000 Chinese-made vehicles last year

BYD BYD News BYD Atto 3 BYD Atto 3 News BYD Atto 3 2023 GWM GWM News LDV LDV News Polestar Polestar News Volvo Volvo News Tesla Tesla News Electric Best Electric Cars Industry news Showroom News Electric Cars EV EV News EVs Green Cars Car News
...
How many Chinese cars were sold in Oz?
Andrew Chesterton
Contributing Journalist
6 Jan 2023
2 min read

China is emerging as an increasingly powerful new-car force in Australia, with more than 120,000 Chinese-made vehicles sold here last year.

It's a meteoric rise for the relatively new vehicle manufacturing hub, with just 76,262 vehicles sold in 2021. That number boomed by more than 60 percent last year though, with Chinese-made vehicles accounting for 122,845 sales.

It means one in every 10 vehicles sold in Australia now comes from China, marking the country as the next Korea, Thailand or Japan when it comes to building cars for our market.

Leading that charge is brands like MG, which shifted a super-impressive 49,582 vehicles here last year, making it the seventh most popular brand in the country.

More than 25,000 GWM vehicles found homes here, too, along with more than 16,000 LDVs, and more than 2000 examples of the BYD Atto 3.

That's just north of 93,000 vehicles between those brands alone. Then there's Polestar and Volvo, both of which source some vehicles from China, and Tesla, which shifted almost 20,000 vehicles in Australia, many of which were built in China, too.

The result makes China the fourth biggest supplier of vehicles to Australia, bested by Korea (159,244), Thailand (245,608) and Japan (330,061). But while each of those regions remained relatively static, only China saw true rapid-fire growth last year.

Andrew Chesterton
Contributing Journalist
Andrew Chesterton should probably hate cars. From his hail-damaged Camira that looked like it had spent a hard life parked at the end of Tiger Woods' personal driving range, to the Nissan Pulsar Reebok that shook like it was possessed by a particularly mean-spirited demon every time he dared push past 40km/h, his personal car history isn't exactly littered with gold. But that seemingly endless procession of rust-savaged hate machines taught him something even more important; that cars are more than a collection of nuts, bolts and petrol. They're your ticket to freedom, a way to unlock incredible experiences, rolling invitations to incredible adventures. They have soul. And so, somehow, the car bug still bit. And it bit hard. When "Chesto" started his journalism career with News Ltd's Sunday and Daily Telegraph newspapers, he covered just about everything, from business to real estate, courts to crime, before settling into state political reporting at NSW Parliament House. But the automotive world's siren song soon sounded again, and he begged anyone who would listen for the opportunity to write about cars. Eventually they listened, and his career since has seen him filing car news, reviews and features for TopGear, Wheels, Motor and, of course, CarsGuide, as well as many, many others. More than a decade later, and the car bug is yet to relinquish its toothy grip. And if you ask Chesto, he thinks it never will.
About Author

Comments