What rental car will you be given in Australia? Data reveals the most popular

Renting a car sometimes feels like a lottery. You reserve a particular car, and you often end up with the “or similar” – much to either your delight or dismay.

While sales data for 2024 shows the Japanese and Korean brands are the biggest players on national rental fleets, with the stalwart Toyota Corolla leading the sales chart, there are some lower-volume brands that sell vehicles to the likes of Hertz and Europcar.

This data doesn’t contain Tesla and Polestar sales data, as during the year these companies started exclusively providing this to the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC) and not the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI).

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EVC data breaks down sales by buyer type, but this doesn’t include rental fleets.

Perhaps surprisingly, according to VFACTS data the Toyota RAV4 – the best-selling model among private buyers, and second overall in 2024 – sat in second place despite historically long (if shrinking) waiting lists.

Most of the market’s top 20 overall best-sellers feature in the below list, with the exception of the Mazda CX-5, MG ZS, and Hyundai Kona.

Looking purely at rental sales, the Toyota Kluger and HiAce, Subaru Crosstrek, MG 3, Mitsubishi ASX and Kia Carnival become top 20 players.

The caveat here is we don’t know where the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y would place.

While the likes of Toyota and Mitsubishi sold thousands of vehicles to rental fleets, GWM sold just 263 vehicles to rental companies, while Honda sold 124 and Mercedes-Benz sold 170.

Some brands had even less representation on rental fleets, including BYD (18), Jaguar (12), Jeep (2) and SsangYong (5).

Naturally, high-end brands like Bentley and Rolls-Royce didn’t sell any vehicles at all to rental companies, and neither did Chevrolet, Citroen, Genesis, Lexus, Maserati, Mini, Ram, and Volvo.

The data also reveals what vehicles have the highest percentage of sales to rental companies.

All three BMW 6 Series GTs delivered in 2024 were recorded as going to rental fleets. This was surprising as the vehicle was discontinued locally back in 2020.

After a whopping 56.7 per cent were sold to rental fleets in 2023, the Cupra Ateca dropped down this list though more than a quarter of those sold went to rental agencies.

More than a third of Volkswagen Polo, Peugeot 508 and BMW 5 Series examples delivered in Australia during 2024 also went to rental companies, while just under a half of Skoda Scalas went to outlets like Europcar.

The Scala, 5 Series and 508 had also been among the vehicles with the highest percentage of sales to rental fleets in 2023.

MORE: VFACTS 2024: New vehicle sales hit record high, but slump expected soon