Australia's best-selling PHEVs in 2025 revealed

Plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) sales rose sharply in Australia in 2025, despite the end of a key government incentive.

The Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) exemption on PHEVs ended on April 1, 2025, and yet PHEV sales were up 130.9 per cent year over year for a total of 53,484 deliveries.

An influx of more affordable PHEV offerings, many from Chinese brands, helped fuel this growth.

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Australia also received the first PHEV utes, with BYD, Ford and GWM pioneering a new segment Down Under that’s set to get more entrants in the future.

And it’s BYD that was once again on top, holding just over a 50 per cent share of Australia’s PHEV market – though PHEVs still accounted for 4.3 per cent of the total new-vehicle market.

Models

In 2025, the BYD Sealion 6 and Mitsubishi Outlander each took a step down on the podium to make way for a new top-selling PHEV: the BYD Shark 6.

Not only did the BYD Shark 6 outsell the next best-selling PHEV at a rate of almost exactly two to one, but it blew its rivals – the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV and Ford Ranger PHEV – out of the water.

Admittedly, it had a few more months under its belt – the first deliveries of the Shark 6 were recorded in February, against April for the Ford and May for the GWM – but the BYD’s dominance of the PHEV ute segment is plain to see.

The Cannon Alpha PHEV was nevertheless Australia’s fifth-best selling PHEV in 2025, just behind its showroom-mate, the Haval H6.

Brands

BYD toppled Mitsubishi to become Australia’s best-selling PHEV brand.

It wasn’t just fresh product that saw BYD overtake Mitsubishi, which had been among the first brands to offer PHEVs in Australia.

Mitsubishi was forced to axe its Eclipse Cross, in both petrol and plug-in hybrid guise, as it was one of multiple models in its lineup that didn’t meet new safety regulations. The brand secured stock of affected vehicles prior to the implementation of the new regulation from March 1, but Eclipse Cross PHEV sales still fell by 45.2 per cent.

The Outlander PHEV, an updated version of which is due here this year, also slumped 32.9 per cent.

While BYD posted an enormous increase in PHEV sales (up 337.7 per cent year over year), fuelled in large part by the arrival of the Shark 6, it wasn’t the only brand to sell more PHEVs in 2025 than in the year before.

Setting aside PHEV newcomers like GWM, Chery, Geely and Omoda Jaecoo, all of which launched their first PHEVs in Australia in 2025, there were some other notable players.

Mazda was up 16 per cent, BMW was up 287.3 per cent, and Lexus was up 256.4 per cent on the back of better supply and the launch of the RX PHEV.

MORE: VFACTS 2025: Another record year for new vehicle sales in Australia, but growth modest overall