China has continued to take a powerful portion of the new Australian car market with its pre-emptive move into EVs changing the country-of-origin nature of the Australian car parc.
China has held its third place behind Japan and Thailand and now produces more new Australian cars than Korea or any other European manufacturer according to the latest FCAI new-vehicle figures.
This is due largely to the upsurge in EV sales which over all made up almost ten per cent of new vehicles. Chinese EV brands include their home-grown marques, like BYD, MG and GWM but the figures also include Tesla which are designed in the US but built in China.
The Tesla Model Y is the most popular EV this year followed by the MG ZS and then the Tesla Model 3.
20,244 of the 25,468 or 79 per cent of electric vehicles reported as sold this year made in China.
It is now eight years since Ford closed its manufacturing plants in Australia and Holden and Toyota followed a year lately, effectively ending the Australian car manufacturing era.
The upsurge of China has caused concern in the US, where an inquiry is underway on how Chinese technology could affect cyber-security. It will investigate the data tracking of modern high-tech cars and specifically if any threats are posed to privacy by the real-time tracking.
The competition in China to produce cheaper cars has also caused waves with market leader Tesla, who has reportedly abandoned plans to produce a lower-priced EV in favour of looking at robotaxi technology.
According to Drive News calculations, electric vehicles produced in China nearly tripled in Australia, up 174 per cent compared to 2022 when as recently as five years ago no electric cars sold in Australia were made in China.