China has become the biggest source of new vehicles reaching Australia, overtaking Japan in a single month for the first time and ending a lead Japanese brands had held since 1998. That is according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, whose February 2026 figures put Chinese-built deliveries at 22,362 against Japan’s 21,671, Thailand’s 19,493 and South Korea’s 11,913.
Those deliveries handed China 24.6 per cent of the market and capped a 45.1 per cent jump on the same month a year earlier, even as the overall market slipped 4.5 per cent to 90,712 sales. Chinese-built vehicles accounted for 252,702 of the 1,247,037 new cars sold nationally last year, and nine of the ten brands to enter the market since 2020 are manufactured in China.
“After 28 years, Japan has been overtaken by China,” FCAI chief executive Tony Weber said, citing the sharper competition on price, technology and design. Ten new brands have entered the market since 2020, six of them in the past two years, in one of the most open new-car markets in the world.
Chinese imports have climbed 51 per cent to more than 100,000 vehicles across the first four months of 2026, over 40,000 of them battery electric. BYD has moved into second place among all brands, behind only Toyota.
Established names still hold the top of the sales table, with Toyota the best-selling brand and Mazda and Ford close behind, even as the countries behind the badges keep shifting. That shift shows most clearly in GWM, whose Haval line has grown from off-road utes into the urban SUVs now filling Australian driveways.
Great Wall Motors first used the Haval name on a compact SUV launched in 2005, sold initially as the Hover before the badge was renamed. The brand has since moved from pickups and rugged off-roaders into car-like SUVs aimed squarely at mainstream family buyers.
The model carrying that momentum onto Australian roads is the GWM Haval H6, a mid-size SUV pitched squarely at the Toyota RAV4, Mazda CX-5 and a wave of Chinese rivals. Since its 2021 local launch the H6 has sold more than 35,000 units here, and a mid-2025 overhaul added a plug-in hybrid alongside sharper styling and Australian-tuned suspension.
Our test car wore the updated look, among the changes a wider grille, darker trim in place of chrome and a full-width light bar stripped from the nose. At 4703mm long, 1886mm wide and 1730mm high on a 2738mm wheelbase, it runs a little larger than several rivals, with boot space from 560 up to 1485 litres.
Inside, the cabin steps up with a 14.6-inch central touchscreen, a 10.25-inch digital cluster and a redesigned floating console. Top-tier Ultra grades add heated and cooled front seats, a panoramic sunroof, a head-up display and automated parking.
Three powertrains headline the range, opening with a 2.0-litre turbo-petrol Lux from A$35,990 drive-away that sends 170kW to the front wheels. A petrol-electric hybrid follows from $38,990, pairing a 1.5-litre engine with an electric motor for 179kW, while the plug-in hybrid runs from $44,990 in the Lux and $47,990 in the Ultra.
Plug-in buyers can step up to the Hi4 dual-motor all-wheel-drive Ultra, which pushes outputs to 268kW and 760Nm and adds $3000 to the price. Both plug-in versions offer more than 100km of electric range, enough to cover most short commutes without burning fuel.
Value runs through the range, with a 360-degree camera, wireless charging, Comfort-Tek synthetic leather, a tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel and a full suite of driver aids. Every H6 carries a seven-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, with the hybrid battery covered separately for eight years.
The current H6 holds a five-star ANCAP rating from 2022, valid until December 2028, though the new plug-in version is yet to be independently crash-tested. Reliability data on the newer Chinese SUVs stays thin given how recently most arrived, with early complaints centred on software and driver-assist calibration rather than mechanical faults.
On price the H6 undercuts established plug-in rivals such as the Mitsubishi Outlander and slots beneath the Toyota RAV4 PHEV due here next year, while matching them on features and electric range. With GWM targeting 75,000 annual sales across its range by 2027, the Haval H6 is the vehicle turning China’s February 2026 milestone into a permanent fixture of the Australian driveway.
