VFACTS data for April 2026 dropped this week and two things are now obvious. BYD has overtaken Mazda for the number two spot on the Australian sales chart, and one in every six new cars sold in the month was a battery EV. Both numbers are records. Neither is a fluke.

The headline numbers

Australians bought 92,591 new vehicles in April 2026. That is up 2.2 per cent on April last year. Toyota was first on 15,185 sales, which is a number nobody is catching this decade. The interesting story sits below that.

BYD finished second on 7,702 sales and 8.3 per cent share. Six months ago that sentence would have read "BYD outsold Ford for the first time" and we would have written a paragraph about whether it stuck. It stuck. Mazda, Ford, Mitsubishi and Hyundai are now fighting for third. Four of the Top 10 brands are Chinese: BYD second, GWM seventh, Chery eighth and MG ninth.

The EV number that matters

Battery EVs hit 16.4 per cent market share for the month, or 15,459 units. That is one in every six new cars sold. Year on year, EV volume is up 157 per cent. PHEVs are up 270 per cent. Conventional hybrids are up 27 per cent. The petrol-only base is shrinking faster than most dealer floors have been pricing for.

The Toyota RAV4 led the model chart on 3,729 sales, the Ford Ranger was second on 3,661, the Toyota HiLux was third on 2,835. The Tesla Model Y is now a permanent Top 10 fixture, and the BYD Sealion 7 cracked the Top 20 for the first time.

Cartell Assessment

The story everyone is writing today is "BYD beats Mazda". The story we think matters is the four Chinese brands inside the Top 10. A year ago, GWM and MG were grouped under "Chinese rivals to Toyota". In April 2026 they are simply rivals to Toyota. The strategic question for the Japanese and Korean brands has shifted from "how do we hold the bottom of our range" to "what do we charge for a mid spec RAV4 when a Sealion 6 PHEV is $48,990 drive-away".

The other quiet number to watch is Mazda. It has been the steady second seller for five years. Its PHEV lineup is thin. Its small EV lineup is invisible. The April result is what happens when a brand watches the floor shift and decides not to move with it.

AU Outlook

May will tell us whether April was a clean monthly result or the start of a structural shift. We think structural. EV share will not drop back below 15 per cent. BYD will not cede second to Mazda again. The next number to watch is whether Toyota's share falls under 16 per cent for the first time in five years. If it does, the conversation about Australia's car market has officially changed.