Australia’s EV sales surge in March amid growing fuel security fears, rising petrol prices.
Electric vehicle uptake in Australia is accelerating as anxiety about fuel shortages and rising petrol prices grows.
A month into the ongoing war with Iran, new car sales data released today show the share of EVs has doubled compared to March last year.
The sales spike is just one signal that the country’s car market is shifting, with online searches and showroom visitors surging. But as the world clamps down on fuel supplies and households look to lower their costs, experts are warning that now is the time to iron out existing roadblocks to that transition.
EVs claim market share
March data for new car sales shows battery electric vehicles increased by 23 per cent compared with the previous month. The increase comes despite overall new car sales dropping by 3.3 per cent.
While Australia’s embrace of rooftop solar has been nothing short of staggering — one in three homes now generate their own power — EVs did not quite get the same embrace.
Analysis by clean energy tech think tank Ember shows Australia’s share of new EVs sold in 2025 (14.3 per cent) lagged behind emerging economies such as Vietnam (38 per cent) and Thailand (21 per cent).
But since the conflict in the Middle East brought global fuel vulnerability to the fore, consumer interest has spiked. Google data shows searches for the term EV have almost tripled from the start of the year to the end of March.
Online marketplace Carsales.com reports searches had tripled from February to March 2026.
It has been a noticeable turnaround in the showrooms of Swedish EV brand Polestar as well.
Polestar Australia managing director Scott Maynard said he had to roster extra staff on the weekends to deal with the onslaught of potential buyers.
He said sales in the first quarter of 2026 had almost doubled compared to the same time last year.
“It’s almost been like a sale weekend every weekend, which is not normal for a March trading period,” he said.
“Our test drive numbers are triple what they would traditionally be at this time of year, and the orders that we’re taking from customers are exceptionally high.
“We’ve seen really high showroom traffic. Customers making appointments, customers waiting for test drives, and so we’ve had to put on extra staff to handle the demand.”
It is a similar story at top-selling Chinese automaker BYD and GWM, both reporting significant sales increases for electric and hybrid cars since the start of the fuel crisis.
Paul Ellis, a spokesman for BYD, said the jump was likely due to a combination of rising fuel costs, inflation and interest rates.
“Electric vehicles always make sense, but they are making more sense now because people can see the financial benefits,”Mr Ellis said.
John Kett, chief operating officer for Great Wall Motor (GWM) Australia, was also seeing a spike in interest.
“We’ve seen a rapid increase in electric and hybrid vehicle sales,” Mr Kett said.
Fuel shortages catalyst for change
After two years of mulling over buying an EV, Toowoomba couple Rachael and Alex Guinman have been making themselves known in the local BYD showroom.
Initially motivated by avoiding “bringing another petrol car into the world”, a lack of EV charging infrastructure in inland Queensland had been holding the couple back.
But, they said, the evolving fuel crisis had evened the playing field.
“You have to plan your trips a bit more in an EV …. with fuel shortages, potentially you’d have to do a similar thing with petrol now,”Mr Guinman said.
“That range anxiety applies just as much to petrol as it does to EVs at the moment.”
Considering the up-front costs of buying a new car, the couple is aware it will be a while before the EV will pay off financially.
The sums started to make a lot of sense for newly minted EV owners Ann Hewitt and her husband Brian after their last full tank set them back $200 at the bowser.
“There’s the cost of the car, of course,” Ms Hewitt said.
“But because we have got solar at home and we’ll have the fast charge at home, we don’t expect the running cost to be very much at all once we’ve paid for the initial cost of the car.”
For the Hewitts, switching to an EV was not just driven by the current petrol price volatility — it was about future cash flow.
“Future-proofing ourselves in terms of income, what we spend in the years to come as we retire,” Ms Hewitt said.
