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The rapid and seemingly unstoppable expansion of Chinese carmakers is something to behold.But is it too far-fetched to think all cars will be Chinese within the next 20 years? Or is it naive not to see it as a strong possibility?For a long time I’ve thought the emergence of new Chinese cars in Australia and globally was the natural progression of the car industry. New brands morph from alternative fledgling brands to mature and established ones. We saw this with Japanese brands such as Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi and Nissan which gained popularity in the 1960s and ’70s before becoming established go-to brands in the 1980s and ’90s as they fought homegrown heroes Ford and Holden for space in Australia's driveways. And it stayed that way until the first decade of the 2000s ticked over.Holden and Ford’s ranges and sales shrank giving way to the Koreans who filled the gap with Hyundai and Kia which have climbed high into the top 10 thanks to an excellent range of SUVs and EVs.They’re now marching towards the only brands that stand in their way - Mitsubishi, Ford, Mazda and Toyota - which, by the way, have about three EVs between them.And given another five years Kia and Hyundai may have been able to topple Toyota from number one. But it might be too late for that. The presence of a large and fast-growing force is creating major uncertainty for the established brands in the Australian market - the rise and rise of Chinese brands. At the end of 2024 there were 12 Chinese brands operating in Australia and this year we’re expecting at least another seven to arrive. To put that in perspective we currently have a total of 50 car brands in Australia and nine are Japanese. By the end of 2025 the Chinese tally could easily be 20 brands or 30 per cent of Australia's brand make up.Several Chinese brands have been in Australia for years and have already done the hard yards. It took MG a couple of attempts to find a foothold but it was the seventh best-selling brand in 2024, while GWM came in at 10th. LDV is further down but still sold more than 16,000 vehicles here last year.The newer Chinese arrivals show huge promise with most of them offering affordable electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids when the established brands have only a handful among them, usually at higher prices.BYD, Zeekr, Leapmotor, Geely, Deepal, XPeng, Smart, JAC, Aion, Chery and Jaecoo will spend 2025 launching a multitude of new vehicles here. BYD will be one to watch having sold more cars here last year than Mercedes-Benz and it will likely enter the top 10 best sellers next year. Geely, which is the ‘Volkswagen of China’ in terms of its size and how many brands it owns, is another to watch.Chinese car manufacturers' speed of production, the development of new platforms and technology, the low cost of batteries, availability of electronics and the breakthroughs being made in charging systems, plus the sheer amount of money and Chinese government support behind them make competition almost impossible for many other brands.It’s almost certain that some established brands will bow out of Australia, unable to compete with Chinese brands. It’s also feasible that within the next decade more than half the Australian market could be made up of Chinese brands. And surely some Chinese brands won’t be able to cut it here and leave, too.Who could survive? Well, time has shown that even the mighty like Holden have fallen if they don’t make the cars people want to buy. The sheer brute force of Chinese brands being able to offer what people want quickly and at a low price, and at an always improving tech level could be too difficult for many other brands to fight off.In an extreme scenario this could lead to a 100 per cent Chinese brand market within 15 years. Sounds far fetched? Well they’re a third of the way there already.  

Chinese automotive giant BYD has confirmed right-hand drive production of its city-sized Seagull EV for sale in the UK this year, opening up the possibility of the budget-focused five-door coming to Australia.

BYD's luxury arm Denza has detailed its N9 flagship SUV ahead of its Chinese launch.

Having already turned its hand to passenger cars, SUVs and utes in Australia, Chinese brand BYD appears poised to conquer the wagon segment, with details of the incoming BYD Seal Travel Edition leaking in China.

BYD might have just changed the EV game around the world, revealing a charging breakthrough that can deliver 400kms in driving range in just five minutes.

The debate around Australia's tough new emissions laws heats up, as manufacturers pick sides on the issue.

Australia’s electric car sales are catching up with Europe and the US, but not in a good way. After sales of EVs grew 4.6 per cent in 2024 and a whopping 161 per cent in 2023, registrations of the zero-emissions vehicles have dropped through the first two months of this year. This follows a decline in the US and Europe last year.

It’s a chilly overcast day on the outskirts of Hangzhou and there’s a hum in the air. The ominous tone is generated by no less than 40 fast electric car chargers, which sprout from an otherwise empty field on the side of a freeway.This is the Shaoxing Service Area, a ‘Rest Stop’ on the freeway between two major Chinese east coast cities. It features three rows of fast chargers where in Australia you’d be lucky to find one, a two-storey shopping centre to keep you entertained, and one of Nio’s even more futuristic battery swapping stations hidden away at the back.If you wanted a look into the year 2030, when we’re all meant to be driving zero emissions vehicles, this is it. China is already living in what many consider to be an unattainable existence, where everyone has a free bay to charge and there’s plenty of things to do while you wait, whether it's an hour or just 15 minutes.To give you an idea of the scale of the problem Australia faces though, China already has over 1.8 million public DC chargers, whereas Australia only just cracked the 1000 mark by June of 2024. At one point last year, China built more AC and DC public charging than has ever been built in the USA in just a 73 day period.A better way to look at it is the ratio of chargers to the amount of electric vehicles currently on the road. Even with its astronomical EV sales compared to the rest of the world, China has kept pace with its infrastructure. It has roughly seven electric cars per public charging location.In Australia it is closer to 150 cars per charger, according to the EV Council's data.So if you’re an EV owner wondering why it’s so hard to find a station, or you’re a combustion car buyer wondering where all the chargers are, your answer is there’s nowhere near enough of them yet.The Shaoxing Rest Area, with its 40 plus chargers, isn’t even one of the biggest ones in China. The Xiawuji Battery Charging station on the outskirts of Beijing features no less than 70 fast charging bays offering similar facilities.Shell has opened what appears to be the largest fast charging facility in the world in Shenzhen, sporting an absurd 258 public DC fast chargers all in one location.Shell said the facility services over 3300 EVs a day and has rooftop solar capable of generating up to 300,000kWh of electricity a year to help at least subsidise what can only be an eye-watering energy cost.On the topic of facilities, the Shaoxing location I saw has a two storey shopping mall, mainly occupied by a range of dining outlets, whether it’s a local hotpot shop or a Starbucks. It also had enormous toilet facilities, complete with showers. There’s plenty of indoor and outdoor seating. Interestingly the site still offered a Sinopec refuelling facility for non-EVS, but it consisted of a handful of bowsers taking up about a third of the space of the EV charging bays.It’s the utopia many EV owners are currently looking for, particularly on the great heavily-travelled expanses on Australia’s east coast, yet this little sample of the 2030 future doesn’t come without its own warnings of building up too quickly.According to multiple sources, the use rate of some of these larger sites are surprisingly low, showing what some are calling a “high seasonality” with strong demand in summer travel periods followed by steep declines in demand for charging in winter. It’s reflected at the Shaoxing site. I was there in December on a chilly winter's day and only a handful of the 40 sites were in use. Reuters has reported on a heavily fractured charging market, with the five biggest charging vendors making up only 65.2 per cent market share as of 2023. It reported estimates from Rystad energy, which indicate the pylons of even the largest player are earning less than US$10 a day.Australian charge providers who are yet to develop such large sites can learn from China before they fall into the same traps.For example, Australia’s EV charging networks started out with rapid fragmentation between brands, meaning a similar frustrating experience requiring an array of phone apps to activate and pay for them. Established networks have now become more dominant, with most public DC sites run by either Chargefox or Evie Networks, and most AC slow chargers now being able to be paid for via a single Exploren app.How far are we away from Chinese-style ‘Rest Stops’ as a harbinger for the 2030 future? Certainly a way off yet, but our first glimpse of it might come via Ampol’s redevelopment of the M1 Northbound site in Wyong, NSW, which has been approved by the NSW government for funding for ten DC charging bays. It won’t be the largest site in Australia, with that title already held by the Tesla charging station in Albury. It is hidden away in a public multi-story carpark featuring 16 pylons, but it most resembles a ‘rest-stop’ style location by the side of a highly-trafficked intercity route.While it comes with its own set of warnings to heed then, spots like the Shaoxing rest stop should come as proof that a 2030 future where the majority of us are driving electric cars is not only possible, it’s nothing to be afraid of after all.

BYD said the Shark 6 has the Ford Ranger PHEV licked in one key area, also suggesting the Chinese brand isn't concerned about a towing disparity between the two models.And that area, said BYD, is all-electric driving range, with the 29.58kW battery in the Shark 6 ($57,900 before on-road costs) delivering a claimed engine-free range of 100km.The Ford Ranger, for the record, promises to deliver 'over 45km' of EV-only range from its 11.8kWh battery."I'm very respectful of the competitors, but I think we've always thought that the growth has got to be in PHEV, right? And I feel as though for who the owner is and the ute buyer is, they're looking for a bit further on the range piece, and comfort and those kind of things," said BYD importer EVDirect's CEO, David Smitherman."We've packaged the vehicle exactly for that. And I feel as though we are essentially trailblazers in that piece. We're very happy with where our product."Where the Ford Ranger reclaims spec-sheet bragging rights is towing, with the Blue Oval's plug-in ute rated to tow 3.5 tonnes, compared to the Shark 6's 2.5 tonnes.But even that, said Smitherman, isn't seen as a hindrance, with the executive suggesting that a big towing number is "not what every Australian wants"."We've been very upfront about, two-and-a-half-tonne towing and feedback's been great. I don't feel as though that's what every Australian wants."Now it's fair to say Ford disagrees with that viewpoint, with the brand leaning into towing as its ute's point of difference. In confirming pricing for the four-model Ford Ranger PHEV range ($71,990 - $86,990 before on-road costs), the brand was quick to point out that its ute didn't require "sacrificing any of the core capability".“The addition of PHEV to the Ranger lineup marks the first time in history that Australia’s best-selling nameplate has been offered with an electrified plug-in hybrid option, with the backing of an extensive nationwide dealer network. We can’t wait for our customers to get behind the wheel,” said Andrew Birkic, President and CEO, Ford Australia in a statement.“Our Aussie engineering and design team have created a plug-in hybrid that allows diesel ute buyers to begin their electrification journey without sacrificing any of the core capability that they need from a truck – whether they use it for work or play."

Here are the changes that we would like to see on the 2026 Ford Ranger facelift.