BYD’s surge on the new car sales charts that saw the Chinese carmaker climb to within a few hundred sales of longtime market leader Toyota won’t be repeated any time soon.

That’s according to a BYD Australia’s Director of Public Relations, Paul Ellis, who told Whichcar by Wheels that a confluence of global events and ongoing negotiations with BYD head office in China led to the sales explosion that resulted in the Chinese carmaker shifting 18,881 new cars in June, just 243 cars behind the dominant Toyota.

But, any suggestion that BYD is on the cusp of toppling the Japanese giant from top spot on Australia’s new car sales charts was quickly dispelled by Ellis.

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“That won’t happen,” he said. “We won’t see a number like that again in the foreseeable future.

“What happened in June was the culmination of three months’ worth of effort. When we had those skyrocketing fuel prices, we had waves of people coming in ordering cars.

“And we negotiated with the factory, and had the commitment from the factory that we could fill all those orders by the end of June. That meant getting a whole lot of extra production, which they gave us.”

BYD Australia has since downplayed any suggestions that the reignited conflagration in the Middle East that has seen the price of Brent crude oil surge in price once more could see a second wave of demand for electric cars.

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“Let’s wait and see,” said Ellis, adding that “what’s happening overseas is tragic. It’s sad, and we shouldn’t be, you know, looking at that as something that we want to see. We don’t want to see that. It’s not good for the world. But whatever comes from that, we’re ready to help.”

While BYD edged closer to toppling Toyota over a single month, with total sales of 95,141 for the first six months of 2026, the Japanese giant is still far and away Australia’s most popular car brand ahead of BYD (52,335), Ford (42,296), Kia (41,846) and Mazda (40,502). However, of the top five brands, only BYD (+124.1%) and Kia (+2.7%) are selling more cars than they did over the same period last year.

Toyota’s sales are down a significant 21.4 per cent compared against the first six months of 2025, while both Mazda (-17.2%) and Ford (-10.6%) continue to trend downwards.