Australia’s most googled vehicles

We’ve written before about the best selling car brands in Australia (and EVs) but if you’re a data hound you might be interested in what people are looking for online.

Although search interest doesn’t necessarily translate into sales, there are often indications that people are starting to research their next car, ute or van.

Most searched utes

Research has shown that for the 12 months leading up to July 2026, the most googled ute was the BYD Shark 6. The Chinese-made hybrid ute has grown hugely in popularity, but stills sits behind favourites like the HiLux and Ranger on the sales charts.

Most searched car brands

Looking at data available through Google, we can compare the average search volume and see which brands are most popular online based on Australian searches.

Matching their huge sales volumes, Toyota takes out top spot, followed by BYD and Tesla. Remember that these searches might not always relate to cars, but they’re still a good indicator of interest.

How that data changes over time

Looking at Google Trends, we can see that things mostly remain consistent for searches. Toyota (blue) stays well ahead of the competition which is tightly bunched together below.

You can see two notable spikes around March 2026 where Tesla (yellow) and, especially, BYD (red) gained traction. This coincides with the escalation in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, the rise in petrol prices and the surge of enquiries for EVs.

Most searched Chinese car brands

With the huge number of BYD vehicles on Aussie roads, it’s no surprise that they’re top of this list. But with Chinese cars making up more and more of the market, what else are people searching for?

There’s a big jump down to GWM but from there it’s pretty tightly knit.

Interestingly, the next brand on the list is Denza (with 312k searches) despite only recently launching in Australia.

Most searched European car brands

We compared the search volumes for 27 European car brands currently available in Australia and found it was the luxury cars that people were searching for. While this could just be for window shopping (who doesn’t love the look of a Porsche or Lambo?)

Interestingly, the big F1 teams like Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes didn’t feature.

VW came in sixth with 432k searches.