Which brands sell the most 'passenger cars' in Australia? When it comes to sedans, wagons hatchbacks and sports cars, you might be surprised!

We all know SUVs and dual-cab utes have taken over as the most popular types of vehicles in Australia.

Of the one million new vehicles sold in Australia just 10 years ago in 2011, SUVs only made up a quarter of those sales, while utes captured 150,000 registrations.

Cut to 2022 and in the first three quarters of the year more than half of all vehicle sales belong to SUVs and around 172,000 are utes. Just under 160,000 registrations are for passenger cars.

Clearly, traditional passenger car body styles like sedans, wagons, hatchbacks, people-movers and even sporty coupes and convertibles are no longer as appealing to buyers as they once were.

Despite that, some carmakers are committed to offering models in these categories even though an increasing number of brands are abandoning passenger cars.

For the brands that remain committed to passenger car body styles, the sales charts look very different to the list of top 10 overall brands by sales.

Focusing solely on passenger vehicle sales in the monthly VFACTS new-car sales data, it’s probably not surprising to see that Toyota is number one when it comes to passenger cars.

The Kia Picanto is the country's top-selling micro car.

Toyota has sold 29,350 passenger cars so far this year, which sounds like a lot but it’s a fraction of the total 176,000 vehicles it has registered in that period.

The vast majority of Toyota’s sales are for the HiLux ute - Australia’s top-selling vehicle - and SUVs like the RAV4, LandCruiser and Kluger.

But the Corolla remains the country’s favourite small car, and the Yaris hatch and Camry sedan remain popular, despite slower sales than previous years.

In second place for purely passenger cars is Kia. The Korean brand is still committed to entry-level segments like micro, light and small cars. In fact, the Picanto is the top-selling micro car and the Cerato is third behind the Corolla and Hyundai i30.

The Hyundai i30 only trails the Corolla.

Kia is even recording decent numbers for its Stinger sports sedan (1942 sales, +53.8% year to date) despite buyers abandoning large sedans.

Kia’s sister brand Hyundai holds fourth overall with 20,269 passenger car sales, and that’s almost exclusively due to the popularity of the i30 hatch and sedan (17,218), with the Staria people-mover, Sonata sedan and i20 N hot hatch making up smaller numbers.

The number two brand for overall sales, Mazda is a distant fourth with 12,506 passenger car sales, thanks largely to the Mazda2 and Mazda3 models, although both of these small cars have lost ground in recent years due to higher pricing and increased competition from small SUVs. Mazda is very much an SUV brand these days.

But here’s where it gets interesting. Chinese brand MG is fifth, just trailing Mazda with 11,612 sales that are exclusively for its MG3 hatch, which is Australia’s best-selling light car. MG is seventh when it comes to overall sales and that tally includes the incredibly popular ZS small SUV and larger HS SUV.

Affordable Japanese brand Suzuki follows in sixth for passenger car sales (8917), despite being 14th when it comes to overall sales. The Baleno and Swift light cars are the sole reason for Suzuki’s success on this chart.

EV-maker Tesla is seventh with 8647 Model 3 sedan sales.

Up until recently, Mercedes-Benz dominated the premium mid-size sedan segment with its C-Class and CLA sedans, but Tesla is outpacing it now. However, the A-Class, C-Class coupe and its people-mover range ensure it lands in eighth spot with 7646 passenger car sales.

On this chart, Benz is only about 500 sales ahead of arch-rival BMW (7156) in ninth, which is outshining a number of brands thanks to its 1 and 2 Series and 3 Series model lines, as well as a strong showing from the 4 Series sports car.

Australia's most popular light car is the MG3.

And rounding out the top 10 is fellow German brand, Volkswagen. VW has been badly impacted by the parts shortages and supply chain issues, so pre-pandemic it would be much higher up on this list thanks to strong sales for the Golf, Polo and Passat, as well as Multivan. But it is currently in recovery mode.

As you may have noticed there are some notable absences on this list. Some brands that are top-10 mainstream players are nowhere to be seen here - Ford, Mitsubishi and Nissan, specifically.

Ford has dropped all passenger car models except the Mustang sports car, and relies heavily on the Ranger and Everest twins.

The discontinued Baleno is Suzuki's top seller.

In terms of passenger car models, Nissan only sells the Leaf EV and Z coupe - both niche offerings when it comes to sales.

While Mitsubishi - and indeed fellow Alliance partner Renault - are both now exclusively SUV and light-commercial vehicle brands, with not a passenger car between them.

The Mirage was the last passenger car in Mitsubishi’s line-up before being discontinued due to new ADR regulations that would have been too expensive to change, while the Renault Megane RS hot hatch is in runout for good.

Most popular passenger car brands YTD 2022