China has officially become the biggest supplier of new cars in Australia, overhauling the decades-long dominance of Japan.

According to data released today by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries and the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC), cars manufactured in China accounted for over 46,600 sales for the first two months of 2026, eclipsing the 44,614 Japanese-built cars reported as sold.

Japan has dominated the Australian new car sales landscape for decades, the number one source of new cars for Australians since 1998. But China’s emergence as an auto manufacturing superpower has relegated Japan to second place on the sales chart. The strong result came off February sales data where cars built in China notched up around 25,700 sales last month, over 4000 more than Japan’s tally of 21,671.

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Those figures take into account sales of Polestar and Tesla electric vehicles, as reported by the EVC. All but one Tesla variant – the Model Y Performance – are made in China while all Australian-delivered Polestar models are manufactured in China.

Propelling China’s rise to the top are brands like BYD which has seen a 161 per cent increase in sales compared with the same period last year. Chery too is experiencing massive growth, up 99 per cent over the same time.

Japan’s sales meanwhile have been hard hit by declining sales for Nissan (down 44.7 per cent), Suzuki (down 32.5 per cent) and Toyota (down 25.1 per cent).

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However, Toyota’s numbers in particular are set to bounce back from next month as an all-new generation RAV4 (above) hits dealerships. Sales of the current model, just weeks out from the end of its life-cycle, have petered out, its 2480 sales to date this year in stark contrast to the 9481 RAV4s sold over the first two months of 2025.