Australia's car imports jump as electric vehicle demand surges

Australia's appetite for imported cars picked up sharply in the June quarter, at the same time as the country's fuel bill climbed after war disrupted global energy supply.

Car imports rose 28.2% over the quarter according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics trade figures, with CommBank Economist Harry Ottley saying the jump likely reflects “the surge in demand for electric vehicles.”

The trade figure release follows recent data from the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), which suggested 2026 may be a watershed year for EVs in Australia.

Fuel imports jumped after the war

Fuel was the single biggest reason Australia’s import bill rose, up 61.9%, which Ottley put down to "the energy market supply shock stemming from the war".

Where Australia bought that fuel shifted too.

Imports from Nigeria went from essentially nil to $601m. Other key fuel import parters saw overall imports rise strongly -  Korea rose 77.5%, or $4.7bn, with Malaysia up 63.6% and Brunei up 60.5%.

"Country specific data provides clues as to how inflows of fuel pivoted as the war broke out," Ottley said.

There was some relief by the end of the quarter. Spending on imported fuel fell 11.9% in June to $6.9bn, down from April's peak of $8.6bn as oil prices eased, though Ottley noted prices started climbing again in July.

Australia is only just selling more than it buys

Australia still sold more goods to the rest of the world than it bought, but only just. The gap came in at $1.1bn for the quarter, the smallest since 2017 and well down on the $10.9bn recorded in the same quarter last year, Ottley said. Imports rose 8.1% over the three months while exports rose 4.2%.

Some exports still earned well. Coal was up 19.3% and oil and gas 8.6%, which Ottley linked to higher prices tied to the conflict in the Middle East and more shipments going out. Metal ores and minerals rose 7.6%, on bigger volumes rather than higher prices. Farm exports fell 2.5%.

June went the other way

The monthly figures told a different story. In June alone Australia sold $1.9bn more than it bought, when the market had tipped the opposite. Export values were "much stronger than we expected" at 9.7%, Ottley said, driven by a 60.2% jump in gold exports that reversed a big fall in May.
What it means for the economy

Prices moved around a lot over the quarter, so Ottley also looked at how much actually crossed the border. He estimates the amount of goods going out and coming in both rose by about 2%. On that basis, trade should neither add to nor subtract from economic growth in the June quarter, after dragging it down by 0.8 percentage points in the first three months of the year.

Read Harry Ottley's full note here.