- Australia’s EV transition is accelerating faster than many expected, with electric vehicles reaching a record 16.4% market share in April 2026.
- Chinese manufacturers are now dominating the local EV conversation, offering premium-level design, performance, and technology at prices that would have been unthinkable from European rivals just a few years ago.
- The Zeekr 7X has emerged as one of the clearest signs of that market shift, becoming Australia’s best-selling premium SUV in April despite the brand only launching locally in late 2025.
Whilst the prevailing debate about whether Australian drivers are ever going to buy into the burgeoning EV revolution that’s seemingly taking hold across major markets, charging infrastructure, range anxiety, the usual suspects, and any number of disparate concerns are seemingly running out of juice.
EVs have now hit a record 16.4% market share in April 2026, a robust upward trend with momentum behind it, and with Chinese-made releases flooding the market, there’s one brand in particular that’s starting to break away from the chasing pack.
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In April, the Zeekr 7X became Australia’s best-selling premium SUV with more than 1,000 deliveries in a single month, 2,500 new orders, and a monthly volume that edged out the Tesla Model Y (which ended 2025 as the best-selling model in the country). That’s not a bad return for a brand that only started delivering vehicles here in October 2025.
Zeekr is the premium EV arm of Geely, the Chinese conglomerate that also owns Volvo, Polestar, and Lotus.
Its design centre, found in the uber cool city of Gothenburg, is a Scandinavian hub of industrial design, architecture, and fashion, and counts hugely influential brands like Nudie Jeans and Axel Arigato amongst its friendly neighbours and contemporaries.
It’s no surprise its 7X model has become an Australian best-seller. It looks like a luxury product, like it belongs at the top tier of a young market. More than just the value proposition. Which, in the premium segment, is considerably harder to pull off.
Under the hood, the flagship Performance AWD produces 475kW, charges at up to 420kW DC (on 800-volt architecture), and is fitted with all the technological bells and whistles that we’ve come to expect from a modern 2026 release: a 36-inch augmented-reality HUD (that’s bigger than my one at home), rear OLED screens, and a 21-speaker, 2,160-watt audio system – all for just $72,900 before on-roads. It’s the kind of spec that would comfortably sit in a six-figure European SUV.
But China now supplies over 77% of Australia’s battery-electric vehicles, giving Australian drivers better options in a market that saw the RAV4 consistently take the top gong.
Well, in February 2026, Chinese-built vehicles became the country’s single largest source of new cars, overtaking Japan for the first time since 1998 (sorry, Toyota), and the Zeekr 7X sits quite comfortably at the sharp end of that shift. If recent sales continue, we could see the group leading the charge. Pun, very much intended.
