Eight iconic brands hit all-time monthly sales lows in Australia during 2026

Record lows for eight marques

Eight car brands have recorded all-time monthly sales lows in Australia during 2026, according to reporting first published by drive.com.au on 30 September 2026 and aggregated by Ground News. Excluding months in which no sales were recorded at all, the affected marques are Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Citroen, Jeep, Lotus, Rolls-Royce and McLaren. The drive.com.au report noted that several of these, including Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Citroen and Jeep, sit under the one global owner, Stellantis, and spanned everything from the Jurassic Park icon of the motoring world to what the publication described as the world's most prestigious brands. ¹

DriveAgent has not independently verified the full brand-by-brand sales figures behind this report, and the coverage does not include the underlying monthly numbers or the specific months in which each low was set. What can be stated as confirmed is the reporting claim itself: eight brands, including four Stellantis marques, have each posted their worst-ever month of Australian sales this year on the months when they sold at least one vehicle. ¹

Jaguar's collapse is corroborated by VFACTS data

One of the eight brands can be verified against independent industry data. GoAuto, citing VFACTS figures supplied by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, reported in August 2026 that Jaguar had sold just seven vehicles year to date, a decline of 98.2 per cent, reflecting the British marque's transition to a new product strategy that has effectively emptied its Australian showroom. GoAuto projected Jaguar's annual volume falling from 520 units in 2025 to just eleven for 2026 if current rates held. ⁴

GoAuto's analysis places Jaguar within a broader deterioration across established premium brands: eight of the nine marques it assessed recorded lower year-to-date sales, with combined volume for Audi, BMW, Genesis, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Mini and Volvo at 53,735 units and only Volvo growing, and then by just 0.2 per cent in a market up 1.6 per cent overall. ⁴

A shifting market behind the lows

The record lows are brand-specific, not a sign of a shrinking market. The NRMA's half-year review of the June 2026 VFACTS report noted that nearly all major established marques recorded sales drops in the first half of 2026 - Nissan down 32.8 per cent, Mitsubishi down 25.7 per cent, Subaru down 25.6 per cent and Toyota down 24.4 per cent - yet six Chinese brands grew between 100 and 1000 per cent, with Zeekr up nearly 1300 per cent and Omoda Jaecoo jumping from 690 to 8808 sales. ³

GoAuto's July VFACTS report confirmed the total market was at record levels, with 108,577 new vehicles sold in July, up 4.2 per cent and the strongest July on record, leaving the year to date 1.6 per cent ahead of 2025. Chinese-headquartered brands accounted for 29.5 per cent of the month's sales, and the Toyota RAV4, HiLux and Tesla Model Y topped the model charts. ⁶

Against that backdrop, small-volume legacy brands without fresh product are being squeezed from both directions - by value-focused Chinese newcomers at the mainstream end and by newly arrived Chinese prestige marques such as Denza, Zeekr and Omoda-Jaecoo in the premium space, which GoAuto reported are increasingly competing on technology and equipment rather than price alone. ⁴³

Fuel prices and the EV surge reshaping buyer preferences

The Australian market's powertrain mix has shifted dramatically during 2026 amid the Middle East conflict and the resulting fuel-price spikes. The NRMA reported that with petrol and diesel climbing above $2 per litre, first-half EV sales rose 84.7 per cent, plug-in hybrids 82.6 per cent, while petrol vehicles slumped 23.6 per cent and diesel fell 12 per cent. ³

By August, the ABC's markets live blog reported that electric vehicles had reached a 24.9 per cent share of Australian sales, the highest ever, with Chinese brands' share of the EV market lifting to 59 per cent. Commonwealth Bank sustainable and energy economist John Oh attributed the lift initially to fuel-price hikes, noting tax benefits and favourable novated leases were also driving demand. GoAuto's July figures showed battery electric vehicles within 1263 sales of diesel for the month, having outsold diesel outright for the first time in June. ²⁶

Westpac IQ's analysis of the August CPI noted motor vehicle prices fell 0.4 per cent in the month against expectations of a 0.1 per cent decline, which the economists flagged could be the start of price pressure associated with the rapid expansion of the share of Chinese cars in the Australian market. Automotive fuel, by contrast, rose 14.8 per cent in the month after the fuel excise discount ended on 3 August. ⁵

Where the record lows leave these brands

The eight brands hitting all-time monthly lows span a very wide range of circumstances. For Jaguar, the GoAuto data indicates the collapse is a deliberate consequence of its product transition rather than simply weak demand. For the Stellantis marques among the eight - Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Citroen and Jeep - the reported lows sit within a broader squeeze on legacy European and American brands in a market where Chinese entrants and electrified powertrains are taking share at speed, as documented in the NRMA and GoAuto market analyses. ⁴¹³

DriveAgent's reading of the available data is that the record lows sit alongside a market that is otherwise at record volume, with 740,160 sales year to date as of July 2026, up 1.6 per cent. The detailed brand-by-brand monthly figures and the exact months in which each of the eight lows occurred have not been published in the drive.com.au report as covered by Ground News, so those specifics remain as reported rather than independently verified. ⁶¹