Brands From China In Australia : 2025

There has been an upsurge of cars made in China coming to Australia with one is five from there in 2025. Even a couple of years ago, that would have seemed far fetched. Now, no one would doubt that it will continue to grow. 

The chart to the right shows sales of brands that are based in China. It includes passenger cars and light commercials. 

Rk is where they rank compared to all brands, MS is market share and +/- shows increase over 12 months of 2024. There have been impressive gains plus a host of newbies.

BYD is in its third full year and already has 4.3% market penetration. MG and Haval are both in their 8th full year and while Haval did well in 2025, MG lost some ground. Xpeng is a close to exact as they don't report regularly.

New arrivals for the year have a 'n/a' in the +/- column to indicate that. 2026 will herald in yet more brands, which will be making it a crowded market place. There is such a thing as too much choice. 

Data source: FCAI. 

Photo source: GWM (Tank 300 model - above) & Deepal (E07- below) Australia. 

Vinfast Sales : 2024-25

Vinfast has delivered 197,000 cars for the year, up 102%. The company makes other forms of transport. The e-scooter and e-bike sales were 406,498 (+473%). For those who don't want or cannot afford a car, they have options. 

As an aside, e-scooter and e-bike deliveries will have benefitted from the announced plan to ban petrol powered motorbikes in the Hanoi city center starting in mid-2026. 

Vinfast had a net loss os $2.4 billion in Q1-Q3 2025, with Q3 being the worst. Dividing that figure by sales brings it to -$12,000 per unit. 

It is backed by Vingroup, which gives Vinfast the ability to continue even in the loss making situation it currently sits in. Obviously it needs to remedy this as soon as possible. Expansion is expensive so the financial situation is not totally unexpected. Maybe they could slow that down. 

Most sales are no doubt domestic although the company doesn't release any export data that I was able to find. 

We do know that Vinfast has just recently opened a plant in India and others are planned.  

The range kicks off with the VF 3 (photo above - tiny SUV) which starting reaching customers in the second half of 2024. 

The VF 5 city car (photo left) came out in 2023. It was initially known as the VF e32. 

The VF 6 also was released in 2024. It's a small crossover SUV being just over 4.2 metres in length or 167 inches. 

The VF 7 (picture below) was another car released in early 2024. It's a compact crossover which in my eyes has a wagon look about it. The red car (second from top) is the VF 8 medium large crossover SUV and the first deliveries commenced in late 2022. Lastly, at the top of the page is the VF 9 large crossover SUV. Deliveries were from early 2022.

For H1 2025, Vinfast did release domestic model sales for three of its models, 23,083 VF3 units were delivered, 21,812 VF5 and 8,552 VF6. They were described as "Topping the best seller charts in H12025 in Vietnam." I presume that means the segments they were selling in. 

Summary: As the Vietnamese market isn't large enough to support the brand, exports are essential. I would imagine the company would like that to progress more quickly than it is but reputations take time to be established. 

Some customers have complained about quality issues although others seem happy with their purchase. The US was seen as an important market to enter but that could be problematic with recent tariffs potentially limiting that opportunity, as well as reliability concerns. Overall, it comes across to me as a company in too much of a hurry. 

Li Auto Deliveries : 2020-25

The first Li Auto vehicle was the Li One SUV that hit the roads in China in 2020. It reached 90,000 sales in 2021.

It was then joined by the L8 (Li8 photo above) and L9 large SUVs in 2022. The Li8 looks like an MPV but the L8 sibling at least looks like an SUV. The Li8 model has these swooping lines but is an SUV too. 

The L6 SUV (and Li6 MPV lookalike) was introduced in 2024 and sales reached nearly 200,000 by year's end (pic below). The flagship Mega MPV also came along the same year and it lives up to its name. 

Like many Chinese car manufacturers, the latter part of 2025 saw a decline in sales. The overall year was up with a strong start but that wasn't sustained through the year. Li Auto wasn't spared at all. 

2026 is expected to be flat so pushing export sales will become a priority as car makers try to keep factories operating as close to capacity as possible.  

Li Auto has focused almost exclusively on the domestic market but a shift in that policy is now taking place. The Middle East is an expected priority. 

The company is aiming for 550,000 deliveries in 2026 which seems optimistic. The company is reevaluating its product strategy so who knows how effective that will be.

Data & picture source: Li Auto.