AAAA calls for national new-vehicle sales database built from registration records

Aftermarket body backs a public sales repository

The Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association has thrown its weight behind the creation of an independent, publicly accessible database of new-vehicle sales, and says it should be built from government registration records rather than from voluntary reporting by manufacturers. As reported by AutoTalk Australia, the association is supporting a recommendation in the Electric Vehicle Council's State of EVs 2026 report, which asks the federal government to establish a national repository tracking EV sales and the public charger rollout. The AAAA wants that proposal widened beyond electric vehicles to the whole market, and argues that restricted access to sales data is a competition and productivity problem rather than an EV-specific one. ¹

"Australia cannot plan a transition it cannot measure," AAAA chief executive Stuart Charity told AutoTalk, pointing out that around half of new-vehicle sales need to be electric by 2035 to meet Australia's emissions target, yet government, industry and the public no longer have reliable, open access to basic information about what is being sold. The association wants the database to cover every brand regardless of which industry body a manufacturer belongs to, with figures drawn from state and territory registries and the National Exchange of Vehicle and Driver Information System. It also wants data transparency treated as part of the federal competition and productivity agenda. ¹

A market no single source covers

AutoTalk's reporting sets out how fragmented the current picture is. There is no one place to find a complete set of Australian new-vehicle sales figures. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries publishes monthly VFACTS-based figures covering most of the market, but its free release carries only the top 10 models, the top 10 brands and the leading countries of origin. More detailed data by model, state, fuel type and buyer type is sold on a one-off or subscription basis, with no price published. ¹

Coverage gaps go beyond paywalling. Tesla and Polestar left the FCAI in March 2024 over the chamber's campaign against the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, taking their volumes with them. Both now report to the Electric Vehicle Council, which publishes their figures free each month and invites other brands to contribute on a non-exclusive basis. AutoTalk notes that Smart told Drive in March it reports to neither body, and that the AAAA places Cadillac in the same position. The AAAA also cites the EVC report's finding that sales data is increasingly locked behind paywalls, with journalists facing restrictions on republishing key metrics about the EV transition. ¹

The loss of an official public series

Australia did once have an official public series. According to AutoTalk, the Australian Bureau of Statistics published Sales of New Motor Vehicles monthly until the December 2017 issue, with the series ceasing in January 2018 under the bureau's forward work programme. Even that series was compiled from FCAI figures, and the bureau now points anyone looking for sales data to the chamber's own website. A database drawn from NEVDIS and the state registries would, as the publication observes, be the first national count built on registrations rather than on what the industry chooses to report. ¹

What it means for repairers

For the aftermarket, Charity says the consequences land on businesses that have to plan years ahead. "Independent repairers, parts distributors and training providers need to know what is entering the national fleet. That information guides investment in tooling, equipment, technician training and parts inventory," he told AutoTalk. "When information is held back for commercial gain, businesses competing with dealer networks are left flying blind." ¹

Charity draws a direct parallel with the Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Information Sharing Scheme, which requires manufacturers to make the information needed to diagnose, service and repair vehicles available to Australian repairers. "Repairers need access to repair data to compete, and the whole market needs access to sales data to plan. A workforce that cannot see the vehicles it will be servicing in five years cannot train for them. That is a productivity cost the economy will pay later," he said. "Every other market reform starts with good information. If Australia is serious about competition, productivity and getting the EV transition right, the numbers should belong to everyone." ¹

Scale of the transition task

The Electric Vehicle Council counted about 450,000 battery electric vehicles in the Australian fleet at 30 June 2026, alongside 160,000 plug-in hybrids, AutoTalk reports. The federal target is five million battery EVs by 2035, and the council says meeting it requires the battery fleet to grow roughly tenfold and battery electric market share to pass 50 per cent. It is against that backdrop that the council's State of EVs report recommends a national tracking repository, and the AAAA argues the measurement problem applies to every vehicle sold, not only electrified ones. ¹

Advocacy is core AAAA business

The sales-database call sits within a broader advocacy program the association has outlined itself. In a review of its past financial year, published in the September edition of the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Magazine, the AAAA says it lodged 23 regulatory and parliamentary submissions and points to momentum from the independent review of the Motor Vehicle Information Sharing Scheme, covering electronic logbooks, intermediaries, scan-tool access, governance and enforcement. It also highlights the launch of its ADAS Modifications Code of Conduct, its Canberra Leaders Circle, and the 2026 Australian Auto Aftermarket Expo in Melbourne, which it says drew more than 15,000 people across three days, its largest ever. ²

The association's own account also notes continued investment in member market intelligence, including improvements to its car parc data portal and quarterly market dashboards. That existing reliance on data the AAAA says the wider market cannot freely access underlines why the association has framed an open, registration-based national sales count as a competition and productivity issue rather than solely an EV transition one. No government response to the EVC recommendation, or any timeline for a national repository, is set out in the available reporting. ²¹