Mid-size electric SUV mania: How many Tesla Model Y rivals are now on sale?

Of the 83,805 electric vehicles (EVs) sold in Australia to October this year, more than half were SUVs and most of them were mid-size.

That shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given SUVs overtook passenger cars as the nation’s most popular new vehicle type almost a decade ago in 2017.

And given medium SUVs have long been the single biggest new-vehicle segment – in terms of both sales and the number of models competing – it’s only natural that mid-size electric SUVs are also the best-selling EVs.

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The Tesla Model Y is the most popular of them, selling up a storm since it arrived in Australia in mid-2022, and becoming the nation’s most popular EV in 2023.

Indeed the Model Y is now as ubiquitous as the Toyota Camry once was, with almost 18,000 sold so far this year to October, and automakers are scrambling to release rivals that seek to claim a piece of the action.

There are now 32 mid-size electric SUVs on sale in Australia across the mainstream and luxury segments, with many more to come.

Here’s a rundown of what’s available, looking at not only vehicles that sit within the Model Y’s segment in VFACTS industry sales reports but also other similarly sized electric SUVs that logically rival the Tesla.

Audi Q4 e-tron