VW Group gains at the expense of Tesla which is increasingly coming under pressure from OEMs aggressively pursuing latest CAFE targets
- Matthias Schmidt
- Jun 16
- 2 min read
Volkswagen Group continues to be the leading beneficiary of Tesla's demise across Western Europe in terms of new pure electric (BEV) passenger car registrations on a 12-month rolling basis, according to the latest Schmidt Automotive Research data, published in the monthly studies available to clients.
Half of the top ten most registered BEV new passenger car models between January and April were MEB-based models from the VW Group stable, allowing for a high degree of scaling benefits across brands.
Tesla began to struggle from the point when Germany started ending subsidies for BEV passenger cars, effective at the end of August 2023 (for corporate cars) and January 2024, when all purchase subsidies were discontinued.
During the first half of 2023, every fifth (20% ) Tesla registered across the region landed in Germany. During the past 6 months, however, it halved to just 9% of its regional total, ending up on German roads, possibly also attributed to the toxic impact of CEO Musk's lurch to supporting the AfD political party ahead of the last election.
The slight regional uptake during the early part of 2024, but which faded almost immediately, can be attributed to the Model 3 facelift. No immediate impact has yet been spotted from the Model Y facelift introduced during Q1 2025.
BMW Group also appears to be benefiting, despite introducing a totally new generation architecture, Neue Klasse, which will underpin future models, including BEVs, at the end of the year, with outgoing models doing the running.
Geely, meanwhile, appears to be struggling with a poor performance from Smart, unable to find an identity under its new guise since growing in size but not necessarily in posture when it comes to its market position. Geely have also been impacted by the production changeover of the Volvo Cars EX30, switching from China to Europe to evade tariffs, with full European production likely to have a positive impact from the second half of the year.
Hyundai/Kia also appear to be seeing a positive return with the introduction of the e-GMP-based models, such as the EV3, as well as new segment entrants from the industry.
In terms of collective gains from Sino brands, that has been minimal. Chinese brands are increasingly pivoting to non-BEVs to avoid anti-subsidy tariffs, with gains spotted from ICE and hybridised drivetrains, which aren't impacted by the EU tariffs.
More in the full study...
Source: Schmidt Automotive Research
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*Western Europe 18 Markets: EU Member States prior to the 2004 enlargement plus EFTA markets Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, plus UK
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