Slight upturn in new car registrations: BEVs need a helping hand

In September 2025, new car registrations in Germany rose by 12.8 percent to 235,528 vehicles. With one more working day than in the same month last year, calendar-adjusted year-on-year growth was +7.6 percent. This is according to an analysis of figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) by the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (VDIK). New passenger car registrations of international brands accounted for around 43.2 percent of the total market in September 2025.

Since the beginning of the year, a total of 0.3 percent fewer vehicles have been registered than in the same period last year. That was a total of 2,110,348 passenger cars, including 899,316 vehicles from international brands. The share of international brands was thus 42.6 percent.

45,495 purely battery-electric passenger cars (BEVs) were newly registered in September 2025, representing an increase of 31.9 percent over the same month last year. New registrations for international brands are expected to have risen significantly above average, by 57.0 percent to 18,090 vehicles. The BEV market share in September 2025 was 19.3 percent of all new passenger car registrations, around 2.8 percentage points higher than in the same month last year and thus the highest figure since the end of the BEV purchase subsidy almost two years ago. Since the beginning of the year, a total of 382,202 BEVs have been newly registered, representing growth of 38.3 percent over the same period last year. International brands accounted for around 39.3 percent of this figure, with their market share in the BEV segment expected to have risen by 2.6 percentage points compared to the same period last year. The BEV market share for the first nine months of 2025 is 18.1 percent, which is still not at the level required to achieve the CO2 limit targets.

VDIK President Imelda Labbé: “The future belongs to electric mobility. But how can we quickly advance CO2 reduction? We must support the current upswing with sustainable framework conditions in order to make a BEV share of well over 20 percent achievable. To achieve the CO2 targets, we should be open to hybrid drive technologies and other technologies. To ensure that the transformation does not come with penalties and job losses, we need a master plan for the ramp-up of electric mobility that focuses on the future viability of the automotive industry. We are therefore eagerly awaiting the results of Chancellor Merz’s auto dialogue.”

Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) again recorded particularly strong growth in September compared to the same month last year. New PHEV registrations rose by 85.4 percent to 27,685 vehicles last month. This corresponds to a market share of 11.8 percent, which is around 4.6 percentage points above the previous year’s figure and by far the highest since the end of the PHEV purchase subsidy.
In the PHEV market, international brands are expected to have put 10,506 new vehicles on the road in September, an increase of 97.4 percent over the same month last year. Their market share thus stood at 37.9 percent of the total PHEV market. A total of 217,760 new PHEV passenger cars have been registered since the beginning of the year (+63.9 percent), giving them a market share of 10.3 percent of all new passenger car registrations. International brands have had a market share of 39.9 percent of the total PHEV market since the beginning of the year.

In total, electric vehicles – i.e., BEVs and PHEVs combined – accounted for 73,180 new passenger car registrations in September, 48.1 percent more than in the same month last year. Their market share was 31.1 percent (September 2024: 23.7 percent). Since the beginning of the year, 599,962 electric vehicles have been newly registered, giving them a market share of 28.4 percent.

The number of new commercial vehicle registrations in September was 30,138, 23.3 percent higher than in September of the previous year. Since January 2025, 258,938 new commercial vehicles have been registered (-8.7 percent).