Tesla in the red, Polestar in the black when the first new car sales figures were published in October

Tesla Sales in Australia slumped last month, but Polestar Sales continued to rise in October, according to the Electric Vehicle Council.

The electric vehicle (EV) lobby group has released October sales figures for the two brands ahead of the Federal Chamber of the Automotive Industry releasing its monthly VFACTS report on Thursday; The sales figures of Polestar and Tesla are not published in the latter.

The figures show that Tesla sales fell 37.4 percent to 916 units compared to October 2024, after gradually increasing year-on-year in August and September.

Polestar sales, on the other hand, rose 18.5 percent to 154 units last month.

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As has been the case all year, declining sales of the Model 3 sedan are weighing on Tesla’s balance sheet. Only 181 examples were sold, a decline of 82.6 percent, while the associated Model Y midsize SUV accounted for 735 sales – up 74.2 percent compared to October last year.

So far this year, Tesla has delivered 23,569 vehicles in Australia, down 26.8 percent from the same period last year, with the Model Y (17,972, up 1.3 percent) dwarfing the Model 3 (5597, down 61.3 percent).

Meanwhile, Polestar sales are up 38.6 percent to 2,022 units, with the Polestar 4 midsize SUV (1,099 sales) overtaking the Polestar 2 Fastback (672, down 51.2 percent). The remainder of Polestar’s reported sales were of the Polestar 3 large SUV (251 sales).

However, the biggest threat to Tesla comes not from Polestar but from BYD, and we will have to wait until Thursday to see how big the buffer remains between the two brands.