Australia's best sellers among private buyers in 2025: RAV4, Model Y, Shark beat Ranger, HiLux

Businesses and governments do a lot of heavy lifting, but it’s private buyers that account for the greatest share of new-vehicle sales in Australia.

According to the 2025 VFACTS report published by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), a total of 600,580 vehicles were sold to private buyers last year, out of a total of 1,209,808 vehicles.

These figures exclude Tesla and Polestar, which report their sales separately to the Electric Vehicle Council, and several other auto brands that don’t report their sales to either industry organisation.

The Toyota RAV4 fell short of claiming the title of Australia’s best-selling vehicle overall last year, but it was far and away the best seller among private buyers with 31,413 delivered. Nevertheless, another 20,534 were delivered to other buyer types, including businesses.

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The Tesla Model Y was the second best-selling vehicle among private buyers, but there’s a caveat here – its figures are based on Electric Vehicle Council data which doesn’t categorise sales into Private, Fleet, Government and Rental categories like VFACTS.

For Tesla and Polestar vehicles, we’ve looked at sales classified as Person, One Person and Two People in the EVC’s report. With these sales included, the total number of vehicles delivered to private buyers rises to 625,608.

There are some marked differences between the top 20 list for private sales and the ‘regular’ top 20 list.

Last year’s top seller, the Ford Ranger, was 13th among private buyers, while the third-place Toyota HiLux was 10th.

One ute that actually rose up the charts with business and government sales stripped away was the plug-in hybrid BYD Shark 6 dual-cab, which was the fourth best-selling vehicle among private buyers.

Another way to look at the data is to sort it by percentage of sales to private buyers.

Naturally, this pushes vehicles from exotic brands like Ferrari, Lotus and Lamborghini all the way to the top. Additionally, there are a raft of vehicles launched during 2025, including the Zeekr 7X, Geely EX5, and KGM Actyon mid-size SUVs.

Nevertheless, there are some surprises here.

Honda’s HR-V small SUV, its second best-selling vehicle in 2025, had the highest private sales share of any mainstream model.

It’s unclear whether KGM has intentionally deprioritised fleet sales, or if it’s simply struggling to appeal to fleet buyers. Its entire lineup appeared in this top 20 list.

The BYD Shark 6 appears yet again, with a whopping 86.1 per cent of its sales going to private buyers. Its Sealion 7 showroom mate was narrowly behind at 84.9 per cent.

Excluding the discontinued Mazda CX-9 and Ford Puma, of which just one each were sold, here are the top 20 vehicles with the highest share of sales to private buyers.

The Polestar 2’s figures are based on Electric Vehicle Council data, which splits sales into individual or company purchases unlike the FCAI, which classifies Private, Fleet, Government and Rental buyers.

Set it aside, and 20th position goes to the Honda Civic with 770 private sales out of a total tally of 933 units, or an 82.5 per cent share of private sales.

MORE: VFACTS 2025: Another record year for new vehicle sales in Australia, but growth modest overall