Beginning of the End for Fossil-Fuelled Cars

Good climate news can feel rare. But this week, we got some. According to new analysis reported by The Driven, the number of vehicles registered in NSW with an internal combustion engine peaked on 27 February 2026 at 6,309,403. And now its declining. That includes petrol and diesel cars, vans, trucks, buses, motorcycles, hybrids and plug-in hybrids.

This matters. Because for the first time, new EVs are not merely adding to the total number of cars on the road, they’re beginning to replace fossil fuel vehicles. That’s an historic turning point.

For more than a century, the number of petrol and diesel vehicles on Australian roads has consistently risen. More cars. More petrol. More diesel. More pollution. More imported oil. More emissions. Now, in Australia’s largest state, that trend has started to reverse.

Of course, this certainly doesn’t mean the job’s done. Far from it. NSW is not the whole country, and transport emissions remain a huge challenge. Transport is Australia’s third-largest emitting sector, accounting for around 22 per cent of national emissions. Passenger cars and light commercial vehicles alone produce about 60 per cent of transport emissions and more than 10 per cent of Australia’s total emissions.

This is exactly how transitions happen. First the old system stops growing.Then it starts shrinking. Then it becomes uneconomic, inconvenient and obsolete. That’s what happened with coal-fired power. Renewable energy hasn’t closed every coal station overnight. First it stopped the growth of coal. Then coal generation began falling. Then coal plants started bringing forward their closure dates.

The same thing is now happening on our roads. And the benefits go far beyond climate. Every EV means less petrol and diesel burned in our suburbs, around our schools and along our roads. It means less toxic air pollution. It means quieter streets. It means fewer fumes for children, older people and people with asthma and heart disease. And it means strengthened energy security. Australia is dangerously dependent on imported liquid fuels and this leaves us exposed to global shocks and supply disruptions.

Electric vehicles help fix that. They allow us to run more of our transport system on Australian sunshine, wind and batteries instead of imported oil. That’s good climate policy. Good health policy. Good energy policy. Good national security policy. And good household economics.

This is also part of a much bigger story. Homes are being electrified. Gas appliances are phasing out. Batteries are getting cheaper. Electric utes, vans and trucks are arriving. Even heavy transport is starting to shift, with electric freight trials already proving that cleaner vehicles can also be quieter, smoother and efficient.

The fossil fuel lobby wants us to believe the transition is impossible. But it’s already happening. Not fast enough. Not fairly enough. Not everywhere yet. But it’s happening. The beginning of the end of the internal combustion engine age. It won’t not be marked by one dramatic announcement. Rather, by data like this: a line on a chart that stops climbing and starts to fall. And it’s good news.

Graph from The Driven.