Tesla reaches sales milestone in Australia

Tesla has officially announced it has reached 100,000 electric vehicles (EV) sold in Australia, 13 years after it first arrived Down Under.

The US electric carmaker currently only sells the related Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV in Australia, which are both sourced from China for our market.

The flagship Model S sedan and Model X SUV are no longer offered in Australia as they’re no longer produced in right-hand drive.

Tesla also hasn’t confirmed the outlandish Cybertruck electric pickup will be produced for right-hand have drive markets, although the company was previously allowing Australians to pre-order.

Last year Tesla was the eighth best-selling brand in Australia despite only offering two vehicles locally, outselling the likes of Subaru, Isuzu Ute (which also only offers two vehicles), Volkswagen and Nissan.

It sold a total of 46,116 vehicles, with the split being 17,347 Model 3s and 28,769 Model Ys.

The latter is notable because despite being the sixth best-selling vehicle overall, it was technically the top-selling vehicle among private buyers in Australia last year. It was also the world’s best-selling vehicle in 2023.

Tesla also recently introduced a new update to the Model 3 referred to internally as ‘Highland’, though its local rollout was interrupted by a brief stop-sale and subsequent recall earlier this year.

This was due to a compliance breach, as it didn’t have an easily accessible top-tether anchorage for its rear-middle seat.

Until the end of February this year, Tesla has sold a total of 6772 vehicles, which is down 0.8 per cent year-on-year. Almost two-thirds of this sales figure (4316) have been Model 3s, whereas the remaining 2456 examples have been Model Ys.

Tesla first launched in the Australian market in 2011 with the first-generation Roadster, which used the platform from the Lotus Elise.

The Model S flagship sedan launched locally in 2014 and was subsequently followed by the Model X flagship SUV in 2017.

Tesla launched the Model 3 in Australia in 2019 and followed it up with the related Model Y SUV in 2022.

The company only started reporting sales figures via monthly VFACTS industry sales reports in 2022.

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