A Chinese company best known for its vacuum cleaners has set a bold ambition for its newly-established car-making division to place among Australia's Top 10 sellers.
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Dreame – a Chinese consumer-electronics manufacturer entering the automotive market – has revealed a bold ambition to become one of Australia's Top 10 best-selling car brands within five years.
If achieved, it would be an unprecedented ramp-up – equivalent to more than 40,000 sales annually – for a company that is yet to reveal a production car, let alone build or sell one to a customer, and is best known for robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers.
Dreame has revealed a series of sleek high-performance concepts, the Nebula Next 01 sedan – including a version fitted with rocket boosters that alleges to accelerate from zero to 100km/h in 0.9 seconds – and an accompanying SUV.
However, the cars it plans to launch in Australia as soon as 2027 will be different: a more mundane range of SUVs.
Dreame automotive lead Australia and New Zealand, James Moore, told Drive the new Chinese brand does not plan to compete on price with its compatriots.
“We are looking to benchmark ourselves at the mid to high tier. We are not interested in coming in as a race to the bottom. We've seen many brands come in to compete at that budget price point, and it's a very congested market,” Moore said.
Moore wouldn’t share exactly how many vehicles Dreame was hoping to sell in its first five years, but shared the brand's hopes of cracking the Top 10 within that period.
“If we can knock on the door, if not exceed that Top 10 aspiration, then I think we'd be doing a fantastic job,” Moore said.
It would need to sell more than 41,000 vehicles annually to break into Australia’s Top 10 car brands, based on 2025 figures.
Dreame revealed plans to become an automotive brand only late last year, initially revealing only supercar concepts.
While these supercars are a chance for Australia – assuming they make production – they would arrive only after Dreame’s mainstream models, claims Moore.
Moore hinted at the Dreame models planned to launch the brand in Australia adopting formats more popular than exotic cars.
“The amount of models we had selected from were... those volume segments of small SUV, medium SUV, large SUV, as well as potential pick-ups and utility vehicles as well,” Moore said.
“The models that we've selected [to potentially bring to Australia] fall within between three and four segments, and it would be no surprise that they will generally fit in the volume segments that we're seeing massive growth in at the moment.”
Moore hinted at a ute, adding: “I cannot confirm nor deny, but it wouldn't surprise me if something like that comes to market, given the success of others in this space.”
While the brand claims its vehicles will initially be all-electric, Moore said plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and range-extender electric vehicles (REEV) were under consideration.
Dreame has previously indicated it might sell its cars in an atypical way, selling vehicles through storefronts like Harvey Norman, which already stock its other products, including hair straighteners, lawn mowers, and vacuums.
Moore said Dreame would likely end up selling its cars initially through a more traditional route.
“The reason why we've not ruled out potential current partners, be that Harvey Norman or others is because... there's no wrong way to do something or right way to do something until it's done and you prove a concept and suddenly that becomes the norm.
“However, it is more likely... that we will follow that traditional distributor network because that ensures profitability, ensures you've got the local expertise on the ground in order to launch at scale.”
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Max is the Cadet News Journalist for Drive. He enjoys creating engaging digital content, including videos, podcasts, interactive maps, and graphs. Prior to Drive, he studied at Monash University and gained experience working for various publications. He grew up playing Burnout 3: Takedown on the PS2 and was disappointed when real life car races didn’t have the same physics.
