VW dominates German EV market as Tesla sales decline

Volkswagen has a firm grip on the German electric car market follow a decline in sales for its US rival Tesla.

Cars from the Volkswagen group dominate new registration figures from Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) for the first quarter of this year.

Only BMW can currently keep up, while the former number one Tesla has now been relegated to eighth place.

The KBA recorded a total of 112,968 new registrations of purely electric cars between January and March.

The clear number one is the VW brand with 25,393, followed by BMW with 10,315. Behind them come three VW subsidiaries - Skoda, Audi and Seat, with 9,258, 8,634 and 8,063 new registrations respectively.

Sixth place goes to Mercedes with 7,090, ahead of Hyundai with 5,316. Tesla only comes in eighth place with 4,935 cars.

In the same period last year, which was also disrupted by the discontinuation of the environmental bonus, Tesla was still in first place, and in third place for the year as a whole.

There are also special effects this year. For example, many manufacturers have postponed new electric car registrations from 2024 to 2025 in order to more easily achieve the stricter fleet targets for C02 emissions.

In addition, Tesla is likely to have suffered not only from the political activities of chief executive Elon Musk but also from the recent facelift of the Model Y.