Australia has just recorded 1,241,037 New car sales in 2025, but what happens next doesn’t just affect product cycles and supply chains. Over the next decade, the biggest structural drivers will be population growth, ongoing changes in vehicle manufacturing, and the rate at which electrified powertrains displace conventional powertrains.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia’s population was 27.6 million people as of June 30, 2025.
The ABS also emphasizes that long-term population figures are projections, not predictions – they illustrate what would happen if assumed fertility, mortality and migration levels came to pass. This is important because any vehicle story of the “next decade” must be scenario-based and not certain.
The ABS 2022-based projections show Australia’s population increasing to 29.3-29.9 million (low to high) by 2030 and 29.9-32.0 million (low to high) by 2035.
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If Australians continued to buy at roughly the same per capita rate as in 2025, the calculation implies a larger overall market, even without a change in “cars per person”.
Using the 2025 result (1,241,037 sales) and the June 30, 2025 ABS population (27.6 million), Australia purchased approximately 44.9 new vehicles per 1000 population in 2025.
Applying this 2025 rate to the projected total population provides a simple scale reference:
| Year | scenario | Projected population | Implied new car sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2030 | Low | 28,754,774 | 1,292,287 |
| 2030 | medium | 29,294,970 | 1,316,564 |
| 2030 | High | 29,944,100 | 1,345,737 |
| 2035 | Low | 29,885,092 | 1,343,085 |
| 2035 | medium | 30,862,815 | 1,387,026 |
| 2035 | High | 32,021,148 | 1,439,083 |
These are not predictions, but what the market size would look like if sales per person were maintained in 2025 and the population grew in that sense.
The mix of production and origin has changed rapidly over the last decade, especially in the 2020s.
The number of vehicles built in China increased from 2,320 units in 2015 (around 0.2 percent of the market) to 252,928 in 2025 (around 20.4 percent).
Over the same period, Japan remained the largest single source by volume in both years (335,288 in 2015 and 358,981 in 2025), while Thailand increased from 249,804 in 2015 to 249,958 in 2025.
The key point is not that Japan and Thailand have disappeared, but that China has risen to the top without the others falling back to zero. This is another way of describing a more complex, globally distributed supply picture.
The last decade has also marked the shift from niche sales of electric vehicles to a significant part of the market.
In the passenger car/SUV/light commercial vehicle “Light Vehicle” categories:
- In 2015, 1108 electric vehicles were sold (PHEV volume was 0 that year).
- In 2025, electric vehicle sales were 103,270, PHEV sales were 53,484, and combined plug-in sales reached 156,754, accounting for 13.1 percent of the light vehicle market.
Expanding the definition to include hybrids and hydrogen, total sales of “electrified” vehicles reached 355,889 in 2025, or 29.8 percent of light vehicle sales.
It is also noteworthy that the rise of electrification and the rise of China as a country of origin occurred at the same time: China’s origin share rose sharply in the same period that the plug-in share accelerated.
Here’s how sales could grow in the future, considering that sales have already increased.
China origin share (actual → linear scenarios)
- Actual: 0.2 percent (2015) → 3.3 percent (2020) → 20.4 percent (2025)
- If the 2015-2025 pace continues: ~30.5% by 2030, ~40.6% by 2035
- If the faster pace continues in 2020-2025: ~37.4% by 2030, ~54.4% by 2035
Plug-in share of light vehicles (actual → linear scenarios)
- Actual: 0.4 percent (2020) → 3.8 percent (2022) → 13.1 percent (2025)
- If the pace continues from 2020-2025: ~25.8% by 2030, ~38.5% by 2035
- If the faster pace continues in 2022-2025: ~28.6% by 2030, ~44.1% by 2035
These areas are not “what will happen,” but rather them Do show the extent of the changes embedded in the data over the last few years: if growth rates don’t slow significantly, the mix could look dramatically different in 10 years.
China’s rise is not only visible in the origin tables; it is also visible at the top of the sales charts.
In 2025, several China-related brands were already major volume players:
- CWM: 52,809
- BYD: 52,415
- MG: 41,298
- Chery: 34,889
This is important from a next decade perspective because once brands establish themselves at this level, they influence fleet purchasing, used car offerings, service networks and pricing across all segments.
If Australia’s population grows along ABS’s predicted trajectory, and if recent “China share” and “plug-in share” trends continue even partially, the 2030s could be defined by a larger overall market, a much higher electric mix and a larger share of vehicles from China, with the caveat that the ABS population figures are projections, not forecasts, and the market mix rarely moves in straight lines forever.
