Volkswagen has overtaken Tesla as Europe's top EV seller
Summary - Volkswagen beat Tesla in European EV sales across the first three months of 2025, data shows. - Registrations for VW EVs are up more than 150%, while Tesla lost huge ground. - However, the Model Y and Model 3 remain Europe’s top two most-registered EVs.
Tesla was the top EV seller in Europe? I'm surprised.
I'm guessing the top electric-only vehicle excluding hybrids and plug-in hybrids? In the two or three European countries I visit often you definitely see more of those, at least anecdotally. But maybe London City techbros and finance bros outweight everybody else? That seems plausible.
I have to say, I find all of these reports and investor analyses on Tesla's PR woes way too optimistic about how well they'll recover if and when Musk "steps away from the government". I really don't think that genie is going back in the bottle, guys.
Hybrids are not electric vehicles. They are a thing of the past to appease the „range anxiety“ crazed people.
They maybe had a justification to exist until 6 or 7 years ago.
It was always wrong to count those as true electric vehicles.
Cool.
So, anyway.
I mean, plug-in hybrids are what they are, and in Europe in particular there's way less charging infrastructure, way more people living in apartments without the ability to set up a home charge station and way more anxiety about charging full electric EVs as a consequence, depending on the region. Hybrids are whatever, plug-in hybrids seem like a reasonable way to bridge that gap.
But I'm already entertaining this conversation way more than I want, because it's going to lead off on a tangent and I don't want to go on that tangent and we're going to end up in how public transport is the real answer and there are millions of threads here to go rehash that conversation.
So anyway.
in Europe in particular there’s way less charging infrastructure
That’s the opposite of reality in many cases.
For example, Scandinavia, Germany, and the Benelux countries have better charging networks AND much shorter distances between major population centers than the US in general.
way more people living in apartments without the ability to set up a home charge station
Would have been relevant a decade ago, but now there’s public chargers at more and more parking lots and highway rest stops plus at least one major gas station chain has chargers at every station here in Denmark.
I have no doubt that conditions are even better in places like Norway and Sweden where they started adapting much earlier than we did.
way more anxiety about charging full electric EVs as a consequence, depending on the region
Bolded the only part you’ve been right about so far.
plug-in hybrids seem like a reasonable way to bridge that gap.
They were back when the battery technology and charging infrastructure wasn’t in place to support fully transitioning to EVs, but most of Europe is way ahead of you, so as a rule rather than an exception, hybrids are an unnecessary concession, Democratic Party style.
But I’m already entertaining this conversation way more than I want, because it’s going to lead off on a tangent and I don’t want to go on that tangent and we’re going to end up in how public transport is the real answer and there are millions of threads here to go rehash that conversation
TL;DR: you’re wrong and tired of trying to justify your false assumptions, so you try to preempt the logic conclusion that many have reached by implying that it’s wrong and/or or tedious.
Hey, I'll say this, if you want to have this pointless argument with someone who isn't me by just typing "TLDR" and making up some shit you have my wholehearted blessing. Beats having to comb through obnoxious quote blocks to nitpick the smaller fallacies, so go nuts.
Call me when it gets to the full-on name calling, that's always the most exciting part.
Tesla understood that Batteries are expensive so let's make a fancy car so customer are OK to pay for the batteries main brand either didn't have an EV or tried to make a cheap electric car, cutting down the autonomy (e.g. the Renault Zoe). Add the whole We're a progressive company, so we give Tesla rather than diesel mercedes to our executive and Tesla was the main player on the niche market for a decade.
However, as electric car stop being a Niche, every brand has now several electrical models, from a affordable urban one_ to a comfortable and fancy one, If you can afford a Mercedes, Tesla is still an option (but then there is Musk personality not helping) but if you ain't rich, you can go to Volkswagen or Renault depending on how broke you are
You're telling me a cool story about how the Tesla business model is supposed to work. My question is why I've seen a grand total of one Tesla on the road across three countries and yet somehow it was seemingly the top EV brand.
Troed's answer above going "Teslas and full electric EVs are popular in very specific regional pockets" goes much further towards answering that question, I think.
My question is why I’ve seen a grand total of one Tesla on the road across three countries and yet somehow it was seemingly the top EV brand
Could be that those three countries and/or the specific parts of them you traverse aren’t typical for all 44 countries of Europe.
Or viceversa. Hence the point of even asking in the first place.
I flagges that my experience was anecdotal up front, but the most interesting takeaway of the way this thread ended up playing out is that people are super happy assuming other people's fragmentary data or observations are anecdotal but theirs are a typical, statistically significant sample.
Bit of an unexpected way to lose faith in humanity this fine morning, but here we all are, I suppose.
Your point is purely anecdotal. I see lots of Teslas where I live, so there’s that. I also see more BEVs than PHEVs, which is also in line with sales figures.
So, to be blunt, I think your perception is skewed or wrong.
Yes, indeed it is anecdotal.
Did the sentence " In the two or three European countries I visit often you definitely see more of those, at least anecdotally" tip you off? I find that very observant.
No, I saw a piece of data that doesn't match my experience, which meant I must be missing something, so I asked.
You should try it sometime, it's super useful for figuring things out. It'd help.
Tesla was the top EV seller in Europe? I’m surprised.
Not only that, A few years ago, Tesla was as big as all the rest combined!
I’m guessing the top electric-only vehicle excluding hybrids and plug-in hybrids?
That’s how it should be, but in most cases it’s not. 100% battery is called BEV now. But BEV sales have far surpassed plugin Hybrid (PHEV).
IMO a Hybrid plugin or not is NOT electric just as it is NOT an ICE, it’s a hybrid of the 2! But Hybrids are generally counted as EV.
Huh. And even with that Tesla was dominating the space? That's a shocker.
Besides telling me that every other manufacturer was massively screwing up the big thing that would seem to indicate is that penetration was extremely uneven. I came into the thread wanting to see a chart, I'm coming out of it wanting to see a map.
Tesla had a HUGE lead when they started to sell the model S in 2012, and many places there were significant tax incentives to buy one. Back then every competitor to Tesla had really poor range, and they were generally very small city cars. The Tesla model S was a giant leap forward for electric cars (BEV).
The hybrids were never very popular, it was basically a misstep by traditional makers, probably an attempt to leverage their know how on making ICE cars, and use that to make a “semi electric”. The popularity they achieved was probably mostly because many places they enjoyed similar tax incentives to “real” electric cars (BEV).
Now many brands have caught up with Tesla and a popular in Europe, like Hyundai/KIA, VW group, BMW, Mercedes, Stelantis, Renault, Volvo, Polestar, and even Chinese cars like BYD, Xpeng and MG.
So there is lots of competition today, but IMO the first good alternative for a reasonable price here was the Hyundai Kona. I think it’s only about 5 years ago the other makers began to catch up to Tesla.
And now they are beginning to surpass Tesla in different ways. This was made easier by Tesla because they have failed to develop to improve their cars. Tesla model Y is 5 years old now, and they only came out with a facelift version this year!
For comparison European makers have a development cycle of 3 years, and China is extremely fast with 1-2 years!
See, again what I'm missing from that statement is location.
Tesla had a lead where? You couldn't buy a Tesla at all where I lived at the time. Visiting North America everybody wanted one and I knew multiple people who did have one, but there were even more European EVs there than in Europe. First BMW i series I saw was in Canada. Last one, too.
So when did all of this reach Europe? Where in Europe? How fast did it grow in some parts versus others? Was it inconsistently fast but Tesla was ahead everywhere consistently or was the Tesla growth desynched from EV growth in general?
People are feeding me very reductive one-size-fits-all views of the EV market as a global thing in this thread while also giving me very good reason to suspect the EV market isn't globally uniform (or even uniform across Europe, for that matter) at the same time, and no resources to tell which is which beyond anecdotal observation.
This thread is about EU!
Mostly my perspective on the technology side is global, but this is general for Europe, but where developments start from the north and the south and east are a bit behind, I’m located in Denmark.
There are American brands I don’t mention, because they are specific to USA only like Rivian and Lucid. There are also Japanese brands I don’t mention because although Nissan started early, they have failed a lot, and is only now catching up, Toyota and Honda has been very slow too, but have new models out this year that are good.
The Tesla (technological) lead in 2012 with the model S was global. Obviously the lead in sales was only for the countries where it was sold. Like USA, Canada, Scandinavia as the earliest markets. I think it was first in 2018 Tesla started in China.
You couldn’t buy a Tesla at all where I lived at the time.
There are still places like India where you can’t buy a Tesla.
But as I stated above, the center of all of this is the OP post that is about EV sales in EU.
Here’s a chart with the EV sales by country in EU:
eea.europa.eu/…/new-registrations-of-electric-veh…
If you are in Norway you are 20 times as likely to see an EV compared to if you are in Poland.
the EV market isn’t globally uniform
Obviously it isn’t, an EV is expensive, and it requires electric grid infrastructure to use. Also tax incentives are very different.
We can’t tell you how things are compared to where you are, when you don’t tell us.
Further progress in the uptake of electric cars and vans was made in all 27 EU Member States in 2023. Electric vehicles accounted for 22.7% of new car registrations and 7.7% of new van registrations. In total, 2.4 million new electric cars were registered in 2023, up from 2 million in 2022. Registrations of new battery electric cars grew by 37%, while the number of newly registered plug-in hybrid cars fell by almost 4%. In 2023, a total of 91,000 new electric vans were registered, most of which were battery electric.
Finally data! Fig 2 in your link tells the entire story, I believe.
For the record, my point is about the EU. The idea I'm trying to impress is that respondents to this thread seem to look at EV positioning and penetration globally, but if you're just looking at the EU that will be very different than North America, and the perspective people keep repeating seems very, very, VERY North American to me.
No wonder that's the case, because yeah, the differences are huge, as you say. Not just for overall penetration, raging from 90% to 5% of all cars registered in your chart. Also in the types of EVs. Plug-in hybrid goes from 10-ish percent of new EVs in Norway to 75%-ish of all EVs in Romania. That's a big swing (and some egg on grumpy "plug-in-hybrids-are-no-longer-a-concern guy up the thread).
The spread is also... consistently inconsistent? Northern countries seem to definitely take the lead, but the rest is strange. Why is Portugal so much higher than Spain? Why is Romania plug-in hybrid heaven? Why is there such a huge break of almost 10 % between the top and the bottom half of the table?
And that's even before we try to break it down by brand. I bet the Tesla dominance thing is also weirdly spread. Would love to know if there is a correlation with how these numbers shake out one way or the other.
In any case, thanks for looking that up and being, astonishingly, the first person to actually check their assumptions in this whole thread.
In any case, thanks
You are welcome I was a bit worried my reply was a bit long.
For the record, my point is about the EU.
Great then we are on the same level.
Why is Romania plug-in hybrid heaven?
I don’t know the situation in Romania, but I bet it’s because they have tax benefits similar to BEV, but a hybrid is cheaper to make, because the most expensive part in a BEV is the battery, and a plugin can use a (very) small battery, and Romania is not a rich country by EU standards. Also the plugin hybrid is very flexible, and can be used just like a normal ICE car, when there are no chargers around. But there may also be other reasons, like AFAIK Romania is among the countries that have the highest degree of house owners in EU, and charging a Hybrid at home is cheap and may for many be enough for daily use, and if the price of a hybrid and ICE is similar, there are some savings there for the hybrid.
Overall I have to say there are more Hybrids sold in EU than I expected?
Why is Portugal so much higher than Spain?
IDK for sure, but most likely because they have better EV tax credits in Portugal than in Spain.
I bet the Tesla dominance thing is also weirdly spread.
Absolutely, the drop in Tesla sales in Europe varies widely, Germany is the most dramatic 62% for Q1, but Italy it was only down 6,8% and UK it was UP! 6%.
Just like these percentage changes vary wildly, I bet the marketshare does too.
electrek.co/…/tesla-sales-are-down-in-every-singl…
So in EU there are huge regional differences, just like there is in USA, where California is by far the biggest market.
And China is way more differentiated, and so it is globally.
I found your post interesting found another community from you.
Just wondered if you ever post on [email protected] wirh batteries being so integral to cars and energy seems like a good overlap and would like to see more in depth comments on energy.
Thats weird.
Turns out I have no idea how to link to communities. Maybe if I link to a post in that community you can see what I mean.
I’m on lemm.ee so I guess thats why that link comes up. But when I click on the community the previous link I sent is written at the top.
AFAIK the Tariff in EU on BYD BEV is 13% (The tariffs vary based on how much state funding the brand has received), but if they have hybrids, they can sell them without tariff. The tariffs are only on BEV.
I dont think their sales would explode if the tariffs were removed. Many people are still cautious about Chinese cars, and some simply don’t want a car made in China.
(The tariffs vary based on how much state funding the brand has received), but if they have hybrids, they can sell them without tariff. The tariffs are only on BEV.
So all BYD has to do is the absolute minimum to make a BEV into a hybrid. So like, a model aircraft engine and a bike dynamo? It doesn’t have to charge the batteries well. And you can put it on a module that can be easily removed. Maybe sell the car with a little display case for the removed module, just to be extra cheeky.
Especially for something that for years had a significant TAX credit.
Yeah, that’s why I suspected it was easy to game.
“They’re much cheaper than comparable cars!”
People never think about where the savings come from, as long as they can buy stuff.
Seeing people who call themselves left wing defending globalism will always be funny to people like me who are left wing and were protesting against it back in the day.
Dumping is wrong no matter who does it
Right after biden put in his trumpian tariffs against an automaker to protect musk.
If a country is dumping in your market and threatening your own industry you impose tariffs to compensate or you risk losing jobs and you’ll have a much bigger issue to deal with.
I hope you’re not the kind of person that complains about the middle class disappearing because right now you’re defending what made it disappear.
Also, welcome to the world, which isn’t just the US, this thread is about the European market where Biden didn’t impose tariffs.
I hope you’re not the kind of person that complains about the middle class disappearing because right now you’re defending what made it disappear.
Cheap cars aren’t what killed the middle class.
Also, welcome to the world, which isn’t just the US, this thread is about the European market where Biden didn’t impose tariffs.
Nope. Just kicked open the door so trump could.
Opening the door to Chinese stuff and killing the manufacturing industry in North America and Europe is one of the main things that killed the middle class.
Trump didn’t impose tariffs on China in Europe either.
You have a serious reading comprehension issue, you should go back up the chain and reread everything but this time take the time to actually understand the message.
“Anyone who supports Tesla is now a Tankie. Anyone who is anti-Tarrifs is now a Tankie. Anyone who wants anything anti-Trump is a Tankie.”
For the moment he had shut his ears to the remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed out of the telescreen. It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be REDUCED to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.
Can’t speak for other countries, but in Australia BYD is smashing it.
They represent incredible value for money and it’s not like we’ve got a local industry to protect - our conservative government made sure of that.
We’re already the world’s dumping ground for shit vehicles that don’t meet emissions standards, so having a non-Elon Musk EV alternative is something people are grabbing with both hands. We bought a BYD Seal Performance for $70k AUD a little over a year ago. For that money you get an incredibly comfortable sedan that does 500k on a charge, costs about $1 per 100km to run, and does 0-100 in 3.8 seconds.
EU vehicles are crazy overpriced by comparison, and because they try and position Mercedes / BMW / VW as luxury brands here the servicing and repair costs are through the roof. Part availability also sucks, with everything being a 6+ week lead time. We’ve owned European vehicles on several occasions and never again.
Like what?
Korea has a few (Hyundai, Kia / same,same) but the only Japanese options are [P]HEV or the Toyota BZ4X which is… ugly… if it didn’t have a Toyota badge I don’t think they’d sell any of them. Few old Leafs still hanging in there, but if you want to go more than 100k at a time that’s them ruled out.
300km+ range for the Leaf these days and they’ve got the Ariya that has over 400km of range, but I just checked and they don’t seem to offer either in Australia…
Guess you’re truly stuck with Chinese and Korean models then…
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