‘You get what you pay for’: Renault Australia boss snubs cheap Chinese cars

Several younger Chinese brands are consistently outperforming Renault on the Australian sales charts, but Renault’s local arm maintains it’s well-positioned to remain afloat in an increasingly competitive market.

While Renault is promising a raft of new or refreshed models over the next six months, starting with the Scenic E-Tech, its sales so far in 2026 are down on the same period in 2025, while sales of cheaper brands – particularly from China – are skyrocketing locally.

Speaking to media at the local launch for the Scenic E-Tech, Renault Australia general manager Glen Sealey said that “Renault, as a brand, is really in a good position to survive in a market like [Australia]”.

When challenged about whether Renault was content to merely survive rather than thrive, Mr Sealey doubled down.

CarExpert can save you thousands on a new car. Click here to get a great deal.

“I would say survive. This is an aggressive market; the top 10 always make up 70 per cent. That leaves 60 brands competing for roughly 360,000 cars a year. That’s the reality of life,” he said.

“If you’re going to compete in that, [selling] 6000 cars per brand on average, can you survive on 6000 cars a year? We can.”

If 6000 cars a year is the target for Renault Australia, it has serious work to do in order to get on track. The brand delivered 4569 cars here in 2025, down 17.8 per cent on 2024.

It was the brand’s worst result in 14 years, and the new year has gotten off to an inauspicious start – its sales in the first two months of 2026 were also down 17.8 per cent on the same period in 2025.

In the meantime, Renault was outperformed on the sales charts last year by six Chinese brands that all offer cheaper vehicles: GWM (52,809), BYD (52,415), MG (41,298), Chery (34,889), LDV (14,108), and Geely (5010) – the latter even missed two months of sales, as it launched in late February.