Tesla demolishes Chinese brands in Australia: US electric car brand posts best sales in Australia this year with the updated 2025 Tesla Model Y only outsold by the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger

Tesla has clawed itself out of its sales slump in Australia, achieving its best monthly sales figure in the past 12 months.

According to the sales data from the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC), the US electric vehicle (EV) specialist sold a total of 4589 vehicles during June 2025. It’s worth noting that this is technically down 2.0 per cent year-on-year.

Despite only offering two models locally, the Model 3 and Model Y, Tesla still outsold brands like Audi (1662 sales), BMW (2641 sales), Honda (1511 sales), LDV (1581 sales), Mercedes-Benz (2570 sales), MG (3896 sales), Nissan (3468 sales) and Volkswagen (2954 sales) last month.

Chinese car brands like BYD (8156 sales) and GWM (5464 sales) did outsell Tesla for the month, but both of these offer many more models, as well as ones with internal-combustion engines.

In the first half of 2025 Tesla sold a total of 14,146 vehicles. This is down 38.8 per cent from the same period last year.

The majority of Tesla’s June sales were for the popular and recently updated Tesla Model Y electric SUV. In June a total of 3547 examples were sold, which is up 18.96 per cent year-on-year.

This makes the Model Y the third best-seller car for the month, behind only the Ford Ranger (6293 sales) and Toyota HiLux (6195 sales).

So far this year a total of 10,431 examples of the Model Y have been sold, which is down 16.6 per cent from the same period last year.

Tesla sold 1132 examples of the Model 3 electric sedan in June. This is down 36.3 per cent year-on-year.

Despite this sales dive, the Model 3 still outsold the BYD Seal (627 sales), Hyundai Ioniq 6 (9 sales), MG4 (251 sales), Polestar 2 (135 sales) and Polestar 4 (174 sales) for the month.

In the first six months of 2025 Tesla sold a total of 3715 Model 3 examples, which is down a steep 64.95 per cent from the same period last year.

The updated Model 3 has been on sale for over 18 months now and hasn’t received any significant changes since. This could likely explain why sales have dropped off so steeply.

Looking to the future it’s unclear where Tesla will expand from its two model line-up locally. The Model X and Model S electric flagships are no longer produced in right-hand drive, along with the Cybertruck pickup.

The latter is still being evaluated for a local launch, however, with the team seeking a briefing on what changes would be required to meet market-specific Australian Design Rule (ADR) regulations.