Germany powers back to full-year new-car sales growth in 2025
07 January 2026
At the halfway point of 2025, new-car registrations in Germany were struggling. Strong results since then have propelled the market to growth, but can this momentum be carried into 2026? Tom Hooker, Autovista24 journalist, analyses the full-year figures.
The German new-car market recorded 2,857,591 registrations in 2025. Compared to 2024, this represented a 1.4% improvement. Volumes were helped by another strong month in December, with deliveries rising by 9.7% year on year to 246,439 units.
Throughout the first half of 2025, it seemed Germany’s new-car market would continue its 1% full-year decline in 2024. This bottomed out in June, with the worst monthly year-on-year drop of 2025 at 13.8%. At this point, total registration volumes for the six-month period were down 4.7% year on year.
However, the market bounced back with an 11.1% increase in July. From there, momentum began to build. In October, the year-to-date deficit was finally overturned. The new-car market continued to push forward, with stronger volumes at the end of the year. Even so, the danger of decline still lingered at the final hurdle.
Germany’s full-year growth pales compared to the results in Spain or even the UK. However, considering some of the influencing factors on the market this year, it should still be regarded as a strong performance.
The sector has faced a stagnating national economy and supply-chain disruptions, for example. The German new-car market is also becoming increasingly competitive, with many new brands entering or expanding in the country.
The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) has also presented significant strategic and financial challenges. However, they also presented a lifeline for many new-car markets in 2025, with Germany no exception.
Can EVs drive growth past 2025?
EVs, consisting of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), drove overall new-car market growth in Germany last year.
Yet, 2025’s plug-in volume gain could not compensate for the losses incurred by internal-combustion engine (ICE) models. They fell short by just 18,520 deliveries, after a powerful performance in the second half of the year. But can this momentum continue into 2026?
‘New-car registrations in 2025 send a clear signal in the direction of an upswing in EVs. If this trend continues in 2026, the ramp-up of EVs can really gain a foothold if the course is set right,’ explained ZDK president Thomas Peckruhn.
‘Broader model offerings, especially in lower-priced segments, decreasing price gaps between combustion engines and EVs, and the continuous expansion of the charging infrastructure will strengthen demand in the long term,’ he highlighted.
EV incentives return
Another major factor in 2026 will be the introduction of a new national EV incentive scheme. It arrives two years after the conclusion of the last programme in December 2023.
‘A two-year comparison shows the need for targeted subsidies. If you exclude the sharp increase in self-registrations by manufacturers and dealers in commercial registrations, the EV market in 2025 will only have reached the level of two years ago. In the private sector, we are limping,’ commented Peckruhn.
‘This makes it all the more urgent for the federal government to make a clear announcement that subsidies for new EV registrations in the private sector will apply with immediate effect. This will ensure a real and sustainable awakening of EVs in Germany,’ he stated.
Overall, the ZDK expects a year-on-year increase in new-car registrations of between 3.5% and 4% in 2026 to roughly 2.95 million units. Of these, it forecasts that 1.1 million will be EVs. This would mean a year-on-year improvement of around 28.4%, according to Autovista24 calculations.
Meanwhile, the VDA expects a more moderate improvement of 2% to 2.9 million deliveries from January to December this year. The industry body partly attributed this to a weaker economy. It projected a lower annual EV volume of 979,000. This would equate to growth of around 14.3%, according to analysis by Autovista24.
EVs bounce back in 2025
The full-year EV volume for 2025 represents year-on-year growth of 49.6%, bouncing back after a disappointing 2024 result.
This was thanks to a total of 856,540 deliveries from January to December, equating to an increase of 284,026 units. EVs accounted for 30% of all new-car registrations, up 9.7 percentage points (pp) compared to 2024.
This annual growth was boosted by a strong end to the year. The powertrain group enjoyed a 61.5% delivery increase in December. This continued a perfect run of double-digit improvements, which began in January. EVs posted a 34.5% market share in the month, up by 11.1pp year-on-year.
A total of 85,033 plug-in registrations were recorded in December, the third consecutive month where the 80,000-unit threshold was surpassed. While this has been achieved before, it has previously occurred for a one or two-month spell. Moreover, these instances were often caused by a pull-forward effect, where incentives ended in the following month.
Still short of expectations?
Despite strong recent results, some industry figures have stressed that EVs, and specifically BEVs, are not making progress fast enough.
‘The share of BEVs falls short of expectations. It is true that international motor vehicle manufacturers have made a disproportionately large contribution to growth in these segments with affordable EVs and have boosted the plug-in market with a strong product offensive,’ noted VDIK president Imelda Labbé.
‘Nevertheless, the overall market share was not yet sufficient to achieve the CO2 fleet limits. Therefore, it is right that the EU Commission has announced that the limit values will be made more flexible,’ Labbé added.
Automotive package implications
The new flexibilities announced by the European Commission in the automotive package will not alter carmaker CO2 emission targets until 2030. However, it could still have a big impact on Germany’s EV market.
With manufacturers under less pressure to transition to plug-in models in the long term, this may reduce their EV sales ambitions over the next few years. Conversely, the Commission’s proposal for mandatory zero and low-emission vehicle share targets for corporate fleets could aid uptake.
Yet, some industry figures have opposed the idea. VDA president Hildegard Müller highlighted that they do not tackle the expansion of charging infrastructure, a vital factor in the corporate sector’s EV transition.
‘The ideas of the Corporate Fleets initiative and its distribution among the various member states are completely out of touch with reality,’ she stated.
‘We firmly reject these because they do not meet the central challenges of the ramp-up of EVs in view of the expansion of the charging infrastructure and prices at the charging stations. Existing initiatives, as well as individual decarbonisation commitments, ensure sufficient control and support the electrification of vehicle fleets,’ commented Müller.
BEVs end 2025 on a high note
While regulatory changes and incentives may impact EV progress moving forward, in 2025, both BEV and PHEV registrations soared. The former enjoyed a 43.2% uptick in volumes to 545,142 units across the full year. This gave the technology a 19.1% share of overall deliveries, up from 13.5% in 2024.
December marked the powertrain’s best year-on-year growth since the incentive pull-forward month of August 2023, with a 63.2% improvement. The result meant that BEVs achieved double-digit growth, of at least 30%, in 11 months of 2025. The only exception was June, when the market improved by just 8.6%.
A total of 54,774 all-electric models took to German roads in December, translating to a 22.2% share. This was up 7.3pp from one year prior. It also proved its joint-highest share since December 2023. This was another period impacted by an incentive pull-forward effect.
PHEVs perfect 2025 performance
PHEVs capped a perfect 12 months of double-digit registration growth in December. This culminated in an annual improvement of 62.3% year-on-year. Its 311,398-unit total provided the powertrain with a 10.9% share, up from 6.8% in 2024.
December alone saw 30,259 PHEVs registered, a 58.4% improvement compared to one year prior. The technology’s share stood at 12.3%, up 3.8pp on December 2024. It was also 1.3pp ahead of diesel’s share, as the powertrain’s struggles continued.
ICE slides further adrift
Diesel was not alone in having a difficult 2025, with registrations of petrol-powered cars also down. This meant the overall ICE market saw demand cool significantly in the year.
From January to December, the powertrain group suffered a 20.5% drop to 1,172,663 units. In turn, its share plummeted from 52.4% in 2024 to a 41% hold last year. The situation did not improve towards the end of 2025 either.
In both November and December, ICE models accounted for 36.1% of new-car registrations. This was the lowest share recorded since December 2022, when EV incentive changes caused another pull-forward effect. Volumes dropped by 11.3% in the last month of 2025, reaching a total of 89,005 units.
Petrol plummets in 2025
In terms of year-on-year percentage change, petrol was the worst-performing powertrain in 2025. Deliveries of the fuel type slumped by 21.6% across the full year, with 777,641 units. This translated to a 27.2% share, down from 35.2%.
While it ended the year with three consecutive double-digit declines, the biggest falls were recorded in the first half of 2025. Petrol endured a 10.7% drop in December, with 61,917 new models registered. The fuel type represented 25.1% of overall volumes, down 5.8pp year-on-year.
Volumes of diesel-powered models fell by 18.3% in 2025 to 395,022 units. Meanwhile, its share slumped from 17.2% to 13.8%.
December saw a new low for diesel, as its market hold dipped to 11%. This marked a decline of 2.8pp compared to 12 months prior and was its smallest market share since December 2022. Deliveries in December 2025 dropped by 12.7% to 27,088 units.
Have hybrids passed their peak?
While EV registrations soared and ICE deliveries slumped, hybrid volumes, including full and mild hybrids, sat somewhere in the middle.
The technology did record growth in 2025. Registrations improved by 8% year on year to 816,111 units. It was also the popular powertrain choice among new-car buyers in the year. Hybrids captured 28.6% of overall volumes, up from 26.8% in 2024 and 1.4pp ahead of petrol.
However, more recent figures tell a different story. In December, registrations improved by 1%, with 71,273 units delivered. This followed its only decline of the year, in November.
Hybrids took a 28.9% market share in the last month of the year, down 2.5pp on December 2024. Yet 12 months before, hybrid shares peaked, surpassing the 30% threshold. Now, as the upward momentum for EVs continues, the technology is stagnating.
As emissions targets tighten, hybrids may face more declines in 2026, as carmakers try to push EV sales. However, they still contributed to the success of the electrified market in 2025, which combines hybrids with EVs. The group saw deliveries increase by 26% from January to December. Meanwhile, its share soared from 47.1% to 58.5%.
Elsewhere, the ‘others’ category, including hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles, natural gas and liquified petroleum gas vehicles, E85/ethanol and other fuels, struggled in 2025.
The grouping suffered a 13% decline in volumes to 12,277 units, as its share fell 0.1pp to 0.5%. The market remained stagnant in December, as a growth of just 0.4% equated to 1,128 deliveries, according to Autovista24 calculations.
