In April, new passenger car registrations in Germany increased by nearly 13 percent year-over-year to 202,947. During the first four months of 2023, a total of 869,765 cars were registered (up 8 percent year-over-year).
In terms of all-electric car sales, the volume increased by 34 percent year-over-year to 29,740 new registrations, which represents about 14.7 percent of the market.
On the other side, plug-in hybrid car sales once again decreased. In April, only 11,787 units were registered (down 46 percent year-over-year), which is 5.8 percent of the market. That's the fourth consecutive decline of such scale, caused by the end of incentives for PHEVs. Noticeable incentives for BEVs are still available (slightly lowered in 2023).
In effect, the total sales of plug-in electric cars were lower than a year ago (the fourth time this year), at 41,527 (down 5.3 percent), but that's still enough for 20.5 percent of the total market.
It's expected that BEV sales will continue to increase, offsetting the drop in PHEVs, so hopefully the total volume of rechargeable cars will also start increasing.
New plug-in vehicle registrations:
- BEVs: 29,740 – up 34% at 14.7% market share
- PHEVs: 11,787 – down 46% at 5.8% market share
- Total: 41,527 – down 5.3% at 20.5% market share
Plug-in electric car registrations in Germany – April 2023
So far this year, more than 173,000 passenger plug-in electric cars have been registered in Germany, which is 11 percent less than a year ago.
Registrations year-to-date:
- BEVs: 124,476 – up 18% at 14.3% market share
- PHEVs: 49,332 – down 45% at 5.7% market share
- Total: 173,808 – down 11% at 20.0% market share
For reference, in 2022, more than 832,000 new passenger plug-in cars were registered in Germany, compared to over 681,000 in 2021.
Top brands
In April, four German brands (Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi) were at the top of the list of the highest number of registrations of rechargeable cars. Volkswagen was also the top player in terms of all-electric car sales (5,368 registrations).
Plug-in car registrations by brands (at least 1,000) last month:
- Volkswagen: 5848 - 5368 BEVs and 480 PHEVs
- Mercedes-Benz: 5214 - 2322 BEVs and 2892 PHEVs
- BMW: 3305 - 1823 BEVs and 1482 PHEVs
- Audi: 2850 - 1875 BEVs and 975 PHEVs
- Tesla: 2420 - 2420 BEVs
- Hyundai: 2161 - 1784 BEVs and 377 PHEVs
- Opel: 1730 - 1261 BEVs and 469 PHEVs
- Seat: 1723 - 934 BEVs and 789 PHEVs
- Skoda: 1658 - 1405 BEVs and 253 PHEVs
- smart: 1559 - 1559 BEVs
- Kia: 1533 - 789 BEVs and 744 PHEVs
- Volvo: 1277 - 513 BEVs and 764 PHEVs
- MG Roewe: 1010 - 1008 BEVs and 2 PHEVs
- Fiat: 1004 - 1004 BEVs
As we can see below, despite a slower April, Tesla maintained its first position year-to-date, although Volkswagen is right behind.
Plug-in car registrations by brands (at least 4,000) year-to-date:
- Tesla: 23075 - 23075 BEVs
- Volkswagen: 22294 - 18811 BEVs and 3483 PHEVs
- Mercedes-Benz: 21069 - 9620 BEVs and 11449 PHEVs
- Audi: 14437 - 9512 BEVs and 4925 PHEVs
- BMW: 11689 - 6157 BEVs and 5532 PHEVs
- Hyundai: 8235 - 7178 BEVs and 1057 PHEVs
- Seat: 7234 - 3379 BEVs and 3855 PHEVs
- Volvo: 5825 - 2797 BEVs and 3028 PHEVs
- Skoda: 5549 - 4141 BEVs and 1408 PHEVs
- Opel: 5082 - 3374 BEVs and 1708 PHEVs
- smart: 4939 - 4939 BEVs
- Peugeot: 4283 - 2997 BEVs and 1286 PHEVs
- MG Roewe: 4141 - 4125 BEVs and 16 PHEVs
- Fiat: 4129 - 4129 BEVs
Top models
Last month, the most popular model happened to be the Volkswagen ID.4/ID.5 duo with some 2,723 units, followed by the Volkswagen ID.3 (2,050). We also saw not bad 1,405 Skoda Enyaq iV and 1,370 Audi Q4 e-tron, which are direct cousins of the ID.4/ID.5.
The Tesla Model Y had some 1,636 registrations in April. However, its massive advantage over others so far this year (17,487 units YTD) is unthreatened.
Top all-electric models year-to-date:
- Tesla Model Y - 17,487
- Volkswagen ID.4/ID.5 - 9,505
- Volkswagen ID.3 - 7,335
- Audi Q4 e-tron - 4,972
- Tesla Model 3 - 4,776
