TESLA

New Tesla Model Y drives Australian May sales to highest level in a year

Tesla sold nearly 4,000 electric cars in Australia in May, thanks to a resurgence powered by the updated Model Y. The performance stands out the Down Under as the carmaker recorded plunging sales in other markets.

Australia has become another bright spot for Tesla as the company navigates the darkness of falling sales around the world. Customers in the Down Under picked up nearly 4,000 units in May, mostly made up of the updated Model Y.

April 2025 was a particularly terrible month for Tesla in Australia, with only 500 EVs delivered, the lowest performance in three years. However, the company could be making a comeback with 3,897 cars sold in May 2025, a 700 percent increase.

The resurgence was powered by the Model Y, which Tesla recently updated. The electric SUV sold 3,580 units in May, 122.5 percent more than the same period last year and 1,200 percent more than in April 2025. This could be enough to land a spot on the country’s best-selling car list.

Tesla, however, could not achieve a similar rally for the Model 3. The sedan sold only 317 units, 50 percent better than in April but still a significant drop of 83.8 percent from May 2024.

The jury is realistically still out on whether Tesla is on a recovery path in Australia. The bump in May sales may not be unconnected to pent-up demand for the updated Model Y, and it remains to be seen if Tesla can sustain May figures.

Tesla’s Country Manager for Australia, Thom Drew, spoke to Drive in April about the Model Y and its influence on the company’s performance in Australia.

He said the company saw tremendous interest in the Launch Edition of the new Model Y, which featured premium badging and some other novelty improvements compared to the Long Range All-Wheel-Drive that is available already.

Drew said: “When we launched orders back in January, we had an enormous response to the launch edition. We’ve only just started test drives in the last couple of weeks. The boat’s been slowly making its way around the country. And now we’re seeing that kind of second wave come through, and seeing a lot of interest. I think we had a record test drive week, last week, in our entire history. So yeah, [we’re] seeing some really strong interest.”

Another market that Tesla can cling to for hope is Norway. The world-largest automaker by market capitalization sold 2,600 vehicles in May in the Nordic country, more than 200 percent better year-on-year. However, sales continued to tumble in France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Portugal.

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