Special effects in January: battery electric vehicles benefit

A total of 207,640 new passenger cars were registered in Germany in January, 112,323 of which had alternative drive systems (purely electric, hybrids with and without plugs and gas-powered). This is 23.6% more than in the same month last year, which was weak due to subsidies. The share of new registrations with alternative drive systems in the overall market rose to 54.1% in January. In January 2024, it was still 42.6%. The international vehicle manufacturers’ market share of alternative drive systems was 44.2% in January 2025, 2.2 percentage points higher than in January 2024.

Hybrid vehicles without plugs achieved an increase of 13.7% in January. 59,252 new registrations correspond to a 28.5% share of passenger car registrations (January 2024: 24.4%). The international vehicle manufacturers’ market share of hybrids was therefore 45.3% in January 2025.

New registrations of purely battery electric passenger cars (BEV) increased significantly by 53.5% to 34,498 units in January. On the one hand, this growth is due to the very weak month of the previous year following the abrupt end of the subsidy; on the other hand, special effects in connection with the CO2 fleet regulation are also conceivable. The BEV share of total new passenger car registrations reached 16.6% in January. In comparison: in January 2024, the BEV market share was 10.5% after the private purchase subsidy for BEVs expired at the end of 2024. The share of international manufacturers in the BEV market was 41.0% in January 2025 (+6.3 percentage points compared to the same month last year).

New registrations of vehicles with plug-in hybrid drive (PHEV) also recorded an increase in January. 17,712 PHEVs rolled onto the roads, 23.1% more than in the same month last year. The share of all new passenger car registrations rose to 8.5% (January 2024: 6.7%), which once again corresponds to the highest PHEV market share since the end of the purchase subsidy for plug-in hybrids at the end of 2022, following the highs in the previous months. The international vehicle manufacturers’ market share of plug-in hybrids thus rose by 12.1 percentage points to 43.9% in January.

Together, electric vehicles (BEVs, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles) therefore had a market share of 25.1% in January with 52,210 new registrations. This corresponds to an increase of 41.6 percent compared to January of the previous year.

The VDIK regularly updates the list of electric vehicles of its member companies. The VDIK electric list can be accessed here.

In addition, 859 LPG passenger cars (-54.8 percent) rolled onto the roads in January.

New registrations of combustion passenger cars reached 95,314 units in January, of which 62,358 were petrol (-23.7 percent) and 32,956 diesel (-19.5 percent). Petrol cars accounted for 30.0 percent of new car registrations, while diesel cars accounted for 15.9 percent.