Australia’s second-hand battery-electric vehicle (BEV) market is starting to hit its straps. From week to week now, the major car sales websites and auction house listings are showing a steady growth in both the variety and number of available BEVs.

Carsales.com.au, for instance, has recently seen BEV listings pass the 11,000 mark, 6,500-ish of which are shown as used or demo. (Just pre-Covid, I remember that number being in the low hundreds!).

Even at 11,000, this may seem small-beer compared to the current total of over 160,000 used and demo models overall on that same site – but at 4%, it has become a viable segment to start looking for a recent second-hand BEV. 

That hasn’t always been the case: Australian sales of full-battery EVs (BEVs) started very slowly. In 2011 (the first year Australian BEV stats were collected), a mere 49 were sold. Even by the end of the first decade (2011-2020) the cumulative total was still only just shy of 17,000.

However, just as happened previously in many other countries (until recently, Australia had been a BEV uptake laggard), 2021 saw the long-expected acceleration with another 17,000 added in just 12 months.

Currently (as at September 30, 2026), Australia’s cumulative BEV sales have reached around 525,000 – most of which are likely still in use as almost 500,000 of them have hit the road since the end of 2021.

As a result, the first decade of second-hand BEV sales market was very thin. Prices were less a measure of a ‘market value’ and more one that reflected enthusiasts swapping treasured possessions.

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