BYD Sealion 6 PHEV storms into Australia's top 20 best-sellers

It may have come close on several occasions, but at the end of 2024 the BYD Sealion 6 SUV managed to crack Australia’s top 20 best-selling vehicles for the first time.

In December 2024, BYD delivered 1122 examples of the Sealion 6, placing it 18th overall for the month – ahead of established models like the Mazda BT-50 on 1101 and Hyundai i30 on 1066.

Its performance wasn’t quite strong enough to see it crack the top 20 for the calendar year, instead coming in at 55th.

However, the Sealion 6 only debuted on the VFACTS sales charts in June 2024, and in that month 482 deliveries were recorded. It immediately became BYD’s second best-selling model behind only the Seal sedan.

The brand’s first plug-in hybrid vehicle in Australia, sales of the Sealion 6 continued to grow in the following months before it became BYD’s sales leader. It reached the 1000 monthly delivery milestone in August.

100s of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now.

The Sealion 6 competes in the mid-sized SUV segment, Australia’s largest by volume.

It was one of a total of seven mid-sized SUVs in the top 20 for December, behind only the Toyota RAV4 (first place, 5119 sales), Kia Sportage (seventh, 2213 sales), Nissan X-Trail (eighth, 2096 sales), Mitsubishi Outlander (ninth, 1991 sales), Tesla Model Y (10th, 1861 sales) and Mazda CX-5 (14th, 1598 sales).

Only the Outlander offers a plug-in hybrid powertrain, though the RAV4, Sportage and X-Trail are offered as a hybrid and the Model Y is fully electric.

As continues to be the trend, the Sealion 6 is BYD’s best-selling model in Australia by some margin. Its 1122 sales in December ranked it well ahead of the next closest car, the Seal, which recorded 412 sales, and the SUV accounted for more than half of BYD’s 1993 December total.

The Sealion 6 also only narrowly missed out on being BYD’s top seller for the whole of 2024 despite arriving halfway through the year, as the Seal prevailed with 6393 deliveries to 6198.

The Sealion 6 remains a relatively unique offering in the Australian market given its availability exclusively as a PHEV.

Two variants are available with either front or all-wheel drive, both fed by the same 18.3kWh Blade lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery.

Pricing for the two variants is listed at $48,990 and $52,990 before on-roads, respectively, placing it right in the ballpark of the RAV4 Hybrid and petrol-only Outlanders.

It still costs roughly $10,000 less than the cheapest Model Y and Outlander PHEV.

MORE: VFACTS December 2024: Sales bump helps set annual record