In 2025, Australia’s newvehicle market had a record of 1,241,037 sales for its new model (although the breakdown of combustion-powered, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric cars) has revealed data that shows which buyer group was most attracted to what type of car.
Buyers are dividing into four different camps at a high level battery-electric vehicles (EVs), plugin hybrids (PHEVS)***, *hybrids(HEVs), and the still-dominant world of petrol- and diesel-powered cars – including mild-hYbriDs.
Based on 2025 volume, that looks like:
- EVs: 103,270 sales (8.3 per cent of the market) – including just two hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs)
- PHEVs: 53,484 sales (4.3 per cent) – including a small slice of extended‑range electric vehicles (EREVs)
- Hybrids (no‑plug): 199,133 sales (16.0 per cent) – conventional hybrids plus self-charging systems like Nissan e‑Power
- Combustion (petrol/diesel, including MHEVs): 884,944 sales (71.3 per cent)
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Numbers show EVs are now an important part of the market but they’re still mostly a private and business purchase, not rented one.
PHEVs are even more private buyer‑led, and rental fleets have barely touched them.
But in large part, Toyota has largely removed the niche ‘electrified’ footnote of regular hybrids from being a niche. They’re a large part of the market and, most importantly, they have fewer rental markets than EVs or PHEV’s; so far it’s become the lowrisk fuel-saving option for fleets.
Meanwhile, combustion vehicles (petrol/diesel plus mild-hybrids) are the default option for every buyer group of buyers because they still account for over seven in each 10 new cars sold.
EVs
In 2025, Australians bought 103,270 battery-electric vehicles, accounting for around 8.3 per cent of the total market.
EVs were driven mostly by private buyers, but businesses continued to be one of the biggest contributors apart from rental companies that had little involvement.
A66 was the number of EVs across e-commerce sales where buyer type could be cleanly split. 1 per cent private, 31 and 2 percent private***. 1 per cent business
That’s a very different profile than traditional petrol/diesel cars, for which rental buyers represent largely more meaningful segment of demand.
PHEVs
The plugin hybrids were sold for 53,484 in 2025 – 4 at the time. Approximately three per cent of the market – they are the most private buyerled of all major powertrain categories – and represent 3 percent of total market value.
The plug‑in hybrid split is as follows:
- Private buyers: 34,758 (65.3 per cent)
- Business: 17,652 (33.1 per cent)
- Government: 664 (1.2 per cent)
- Rental: 175 (0.3 per cent)
Hybrids
Hybrids (totalling 199,133) have become a mainstream part of what Australians are buying, and they’re also shaping fleet behaviour.
The hybrid split by buyer type looks like this:
- Private: 115,588 (58.0 per cent)
- Business: 59,549 (29.9 per cent)
- Government: 7,575 (3.8 per cent)
- Rental: 16,421 (8.2 per cent)
Among the three “noplug” sub-categories (petrol/diesel-only, mild-hybrids and conventional hybrids), conventional hybrid was more frequently used for rental. In 2025 – 8, 16,157 hybrid sales were made by rentals. Of all hybrids, 3 per cent – 6 percent – are s. petrol/diesel-only vehicles 4 per cent and 3 per. Paraphrasing 2 per cent of mild-hybrids.
This is the “lowrisk electrification” of hybrids for fleets that want to be more fuel-efficient without refuelling habits or charging infrastructure, which has been described as being an alternative by Thatcher.
Petrol and diesel
If we combine petrol/diesel vehicles and mild-hybrids (which includes members of the Toyota HiLux, Mazda CX-80 and Suzuki Swift lineups), that tallies up to 884,944 sales in 2025 – 71.3 per cent of the entire market.
Of this, mild-hybrids accounted for 94,642 sales.
The overall combustion (plus mild hybrid) bucket splits by buyer type as follows:
- Private: 408,938 (46.2 per cent)
- Business: 398,591 (45.0 per cent)
- Government: 24,024 (2.7 per cent)
- Rental: 53,391 (6.0 per cent)
This is a much more balanced picture than EVs or plugin hybrids, and it’s far more echilibrated than . Business is close behind private buyers, but business remains a key part of demand and rental still plays an important role in the lives of private shoppers.
In general, it seems that while EVs are growing, they’re mostly being bought by private customers and businesses (which we would be risky to include small-business ABN holders) but not rental agencies.
Despite more private-led than EVs, plugin hybrids have become a major second wave (and almost entirely absent from rental fleets) and are virtually completely unrequited of the latest PlugIn hybrid. In contrast, while petrol and diesel cars still dominate in volume, hybrids – particularly conventional variants of the latter’s generation – are now part of Australia’ ‘combustion-era’ market (including a meaningful segment of fleet demand).
MORE:
VFACTS 2025: Another record year for new vehicle sales in Australia, but growth modest overall
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