The tipping point has tipped

China has overtaken Japan as Australia’s number one source of new vehicles for the first time. In February, 22,362 Chinese-sourced vehicles were sold against Japan’s 21,671. And if history is any guide, this is not a blip.

It is the new normal.

Japan had held the top spot since 1998. That is a generation of dominance, built on Toyota, Mazda and Mitsubishi and the reliability narrative that defined Australian car buying for decades. But ten new Chinese brands have entered the market since 2020, six of them in the past two years alone. BYD was up 62 per cent in February. Chery up 93 per cent. GWM up 25 per cent.

Meanwhile Toyota fell 28 per cent, Mazda dropped 20 per cent and Mitsubishi slid 22 per cent.

The thing about market share thresholds is that once crossed, they almost never reverse. Japan held the top spot for nearly three decades.

China has the scale, the product pipeline and the pricing to do the same.

And then there is the fuel situation.

The Middle East conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have sent prices surging and exposed Australia’s uncomfortable dependence on imported petroleum.

Regional towns are rationing diesel. Service stations are capping purchases. The government confirmed Australia holds just 34 days of diesel supply. It is the same cycle every time: prices spike, politicians reassure, and the public is told not to panic.

But for a growing number of buyers, the maths has already shifted. If your electricity comes off the grid or off the roof, your transport fuel is sovereign. That is not an environmental argument. It is a practical one.

China understood this earlier than most. Its push into electrification was never purely about emissions.

It was about energy security, about decoupling transport from oil in a world where shipping lanes cannot be guaranteed. More than half of all new cars sold in China last year were electrified. That competitive intensity is now being exported, and Australia is one of its most open markets.

Battery electric vehicles hit a record 11.8 per cent market share here in February, up 95 per cent year on year.

Every spike at the bowser is a small advertisement for electrification, and right now the best-value EVs on the market are overwhelmingly Chinese.

Japan is not finished in Australia.

Toyota still leads outright sales.

But the trajectory is clear, and the tipping point has tipped.