Germany posts sharp rise in electric car registrations off low base

Registrations of electric cars in Germany soared by 45% last year to more than 545,000 purely battery-powered units, the vehicle registration office (KBA) reported.

Analysts downplayed the year-on-year rise in 2025, as electric registrations had fallen in 2024 after a government subsidy ended.

"While the figures point at first sight to an electric boom, in fact strong growth in 2025 merely compensates for the collapse in sales in 2024," transport analyst Constantin Gall for the EY consultancy said.

When compared to the 2023 figure, the rise came in at around 4%.

The German lobby group for international vehicle producers, the VDIK, said the switch to electric was proceeding more slowly than expected.

Nevertheless, more than 19% of all new registrations last year were of a battery-powered vehicle, up 5.6 percentage points on the year.

In October, the government announced a new subsidy for electric cars to be introduced in the course of 2026.

According to the KBA, new car registrations overall were up 1.4% on the year, with 2.9 million new registrations over 2025. The figure was slightly up on VDIK predictions.

The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) is predicting slight growth of 2.95 million new registrations for the year ahead.

The figures remain well below the 2019 pre-pandemic record, when almost 20% more new registrations were recorded than the figure predicted for this year.