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More than 2.5 million electric cars were sold across Europe, last year, delivering a record-breaking market share of 20%.
Registrations data from 28 territories shows a total of 13.2m new cars were sold in 2025 - an uplift of 2.3% on 2024.
The market remains 16.5% behind a pre-pandemic high of 15.8m cars, however.
Electric vehicle (EV) volumes surged by 29%, with 2.57m units registered in 2025. Petrol and diesel models remained the most popular, however, with volumes of more than 4.5m.
Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) gained traction, with an uplift of 34% to almost 1.3m units.
Other hybrid solutions continued to gain momentum last year. Registrations of full hybrid vehicles (HEVs) grew by 10% year on year, with Toyota maintaining its leadership position thanks to the popularity of the Yaris Cross, Yaris and Corolla. Newer entrants to the segment such as MG also performed well, with the MG ZS in fourth place (81,000 units).
Mild hybrids (MHEVs) were the second best-selling powertrain in Europe, growing by 16% year on year. While range extender vehicles accounted for a small proportion of volumes – with 6,000 units in 2025, driven largely by the Leapmotor C10 – both legacy OEMs such as Volkswagen and BMW and newer Chinese entrants have declared their intentions to explore production.
On a year-on-year basis, growth in Europe was driven by Norway (+39%), Spain (+13%), Austria (+12%) and Poland (+8%), while volumes declined in Belgium (-7%), France (-5%), Italy (-2%) and Switzerland (-2%). Meanwhile, on the production side Germany accounted for more than one fifth (21%) of total registrations, followed by Spain (12%) and Czechia (8%). Most notably, China moved to fifth position in 2025, up from ninth in 2024, driven by a 77% increase in imports.
“China’s growing influence in the European automotive market is reflected in the numbers. The increasing presence of vehicles produced in China on the continent is not only due to the continued rise of Chinese brands but also reflects registrations of European models produced in China, such as the Mini Cooper, Dacia Spring and Cupra Tavascan,” said Daniele Ministeri, senior consultant at JATO Dynamics.
2025 was a pivotal year for new entrants to the market from China, with Chinese-owned brands growing volumes by 44% year on year. BYD and Omoda nearly tripled their volumes compared to 2024, while Jaecoo and Leapmotor reached almost 60,000 and 33,000 units respectively, the latter in its debut year.
The powertrain mix of Chinese-owned brands also evolved in 2025. BEV share decreased by five percentage points, from 40% to 35%, while HEVs and PHEVs both saw increases of eight percentage points.
Volkswagen remained the leading car maker in Europe and overtook Tesla as the most popular EV brand, with the largest volume of registrations in both categories. Volkswagen was also the UK's best-selling car brand in 2025, and the best performer in the true fleet market. The Tesla Model Y was the best-selling EV in Europe, however.
Overall, the Dacia Sandero was Europe's best-selling car, with more than 238,000 sold. The Renault Clio took second place, followed by the VW T-Roc and Golf.
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