this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
294 points (100.0% liked)

World News

46074 readers
3220 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]

Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
294
Volkswagen has overtaken Tesla as Europe's top EV seller (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 6 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Summary

  • Volkswagen beat Tesla in European EV sales across the first three months of 2025, data shows.
  • Registrations for VW EVs are up more than 150%, while Tesla lost huge ground.
  • However, the Model Y and Model 3 remain Europe's top two most-registered EVs.
top 43 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

In fact it's even more crazy if you consider VW group:

Tesla Total 53,237

VW Group:
VW 65,679
Audi 34,739
Skoda 26,578
Cupra (SEAT) 18,878
Porsche 9,929

VW Group total 155,803

ratio 155803/53237 = 2.93
VW group has almost 3 times higher sales than Tesal!!

https://www.carscoops.com/2025/04/vw-finally-beats-tesla-outselling-it-in-q1-ev-sales-in-europe/

PS:
Stellantis:
Peugeot 24,397
Citroen 16,367
Opel 13,612
FIAT 6,825
Stellantis Total 61,201

Stellantis manages to clearly beat Tesla too!!

Edit: I forgot FIAT in the Stellantis numbers.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 hours ago (4 children)

Watch out for BYD from China.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Freaking hell Lemmy has a huge hard on for BYD.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 minutes ago

Well, they do make pretty nice cars.. I have a dolphin, and it is great value for the money :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 49 minutes ago (1 children)

Chinese electric cars are great value.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 minutes ago

If you don't consider the impact that sending yet more manufacturing jobs to China will have in the long run and the fact that they have great value because what China is doing is called dumping and the goal is for them to have a monopoly so they can eventually increase prices without having any competitors.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Right now they’re more expensive in Europe due to tariffs (not the Trump ones), however there were some talks about the EU reducing or removing the tariff on them in which case I can see demand exploding because of their price.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 hour ago

AFAIK the Tariff in EU on BYD BEV is 13% (The tariffs vary based on how much state funding the brand has received), but if they have hybrids, they can sell them without tariff. The tariffs are only on BEV.

I dont think their sales would explode if the tariffs were removed. Many people are still cautious about Chinese cars, and some simply don't want a car made in China.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 hours ago

It’s more expensive. Like the byd Tang is like 150% the price of a vw id4

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

We have them, but people don't seem to be too eager to buy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

I live in Germany and I would love to buy a chinese EV but I just can't find any place that sells them. You just can't really order cars online from China like you can with other products.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I've seen some BYD here in Germany. No clue where they were bought though.

And that ugly Ora whatever cat. I've seen that as well 😵‍💫

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Weird here in Denmark they have a map of dealers on their homepage?
They have dealers pretty well distributred throughout the country.

https://www.bydauto.dk/find-forhandler

Same in Germany:
https://www.byd.com/de/find-store

[–] [email protected] 2 points 32 minutes ago

Thanks, didn't know this existed

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 hours ago (5 children)

Tesla was the top EV seller in Europe? I'm surprised.

I'm guessing the top electric-only vehicle excluding hybrids and plug-in hybrids? In the two or three European countries I visit often you definitely see more of those, at least anecdotally. But maybe London City techbros and finance bros outweight everybody else? That seems plausible.

I have to say, I find all of these reports and investor analyses on Tesla's PR woes way too optimistic about how well they'll recover if and when Musk "steps away from the government". I really don't think that genie is going back in the bottle, guys.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Tesla was the top EV seller in Europe? I’m surprised.

Not only that, A few years ago, Tesla was as big as all the rest combined!

I’m guessing the top electric-only vehicle excluding hybrids and plug-in hybrids?

That's how it should be, but in most cases it's not. 100% battery is called BEV now. But BEV sales have far surpassed plugin Hybrid (PHEV).

IMO a Hybrid plugin or not is NOT electric just as it is NOT an ICE, it's a hybrid of the 2! But Hybrids are generally counted as EV.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Huh. And even with that Tesla was dominating the space? That's a shocker.

Besides telling me that every other manufacturer was massively screwing up the big thing that would seem to indicate is that penetration was extremely uneven. I came into the thread wanting to see a chart, I'm coming out of it wanting to see a map.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 53 minutes ago* (last edited 42 minutes ago) (1 children)

Tesla had a HUGE lead when they started to sell the model S in 2012, and many places there were significant tax incentives to buy one. Back then every competitor to Tesla had really poor range, and they were generally very small city cars. The Tesla model S was a giant leap forward for electric cars (BEV).
The hybrids were never very popular, it was basically a misstep by traditional makers, probably an attempt to leverage their know how on making ICE cars, and use that to make a "semi electric". The popularity they achieved was probably mostly because many places they enjoyed similar tax incentives to "real" electric cars (BEV).
Now many brands have caught up with Tesla and a popular in Europe, like Hyundai/KIA, VW group, BMW, Mercedes, Stelantis, Renault, Volvo, Polestar, and even Chinese cars like BYD, Xpeng and MG.

So there is lots of competition today, but IMO the first good alternative for a reasonable price here was the Hyundai Kona. I think it's only about 5 years ago the other makers began to catch up to Tesla.
And now they are beginning to surpass Tesla in different ways. This was made easier by Tesla because they have failed to develop to improve their cars. Tesla model Y is 5 years old now, and they only came out with a facelift version this year!
For comparison European makers have a development cycle of 3 years, and China is extremely fast with 1-2 years!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 40 minutes ago (1 children)

See, again what I'm missing from that statement is location.

Tesla had a lead where? You couldn't buy a Tesla at all where I lived at the time. Visiting North America everybody wanted one and I knew multiple people who did have one, but there were even more European EVs there than in Europe. First BMW i series I saw was in Canada. Last one, too.

So when did all of this reach Europe? Where in Europe? How fast did it grow in some parts versus others? Was it inconsistently fast but Tesla was ahead everywhere consistently or was the Tesla growth desynched from EV growth in general?

People are feeding me very reductive one-size-fits-all views of the EV market as a global thing in this thread while also giving me very good reason to suspect the EV market isn't globally uniform (or even uniform across Europe, for that matter) at the same time, and no resources to tell which is which beyond anecdotal observation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 minutes ago* (last edited 15 minutes ago)

This thread is about EU!
Mostly my perspective on the technology side is global, but this is general for Europe, but where developments start from the north and the south and east are a bit behind, I'm located in Denmark.
There are American brands I don't mention, because they are specific to USA only like Rivian and Lucid. There are also Japanese brands I don't mention because although Nissan started early, they have failed a lot, and is only now catching up, Toyota and Honda has been very slow too, but have new models out this year that are good.

The Tesla (technological) lead in 2012 with the model S was global. Obviously the lead in sales was only for the countries where it was sold. Like USA, Canada, Scandinavia as the earliest markets. I think it was first in 2018 Tesla started in China.

You couldn’t buy a Tesla at all where I lived at the time.

There are still places like India where you can't buy a Tesla.

But as I stated above, the center of all of this is the OP post that is about EV sales in EU.

Here's a chart with the EV sales by country in EU:
https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/new-registrations-of-electric-vehicles

If you are in Norway you are 20 times as likely to see an EV compared to if you are in Poland.

the EV market isn’t globally uniform

Obviously it isn't, an EV is expensive, and it requires electric grid infrastructure to use. Also tax incentives are very different.

We can't tell you how things are compared to where you are, when you don't tell us.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

Don't know about "London City techbros and finance bros" but in Sweden and Norway we prefer pure EV over hybrids.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

I never really understood the deal about hybrids anyway. To me, it just seems like the worst of both worlds. One of the coolest things about EVs is that you can just charge it at home but wirth a hybrid you need to charge it in addition to also driving to the gas station to fill up the tank. The battery is also way smaller, so the electric engine doesn't take you very far anyway. And whatever engine you're using, you always have to carry the weight of the other system. And since you have both, doesn't that mean that there's way more that can break too?

And that's just talking about plug-in hybrids, the ones that generate electricity using a combustion engine just seem like ICE vehicles with extra steps.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

A plug-in hybrid is cool, to me, in that I can charge it and use it as pure EV for my daily commutes, but if I forget/am unable to charge it it don't have to worry for a second. And I don't need to worry about the range on my 500km roundtrip to my cabin (full charge + full tank equals ~1100km range on my Prius).

Also, fuel consumption is relatively low, so whenever I do have to burn fuel I'm not breaking the bank.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Plug-in hybrids alleviate range anxiety.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

So the hybrid in the name refers to the combined function as a vehicle and a psychological crutch? Would that make those aggressive looking pickup trucks hybrids as well?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I'd prefer a Swedish salary over my hungarian, while we are at it

/s, obviously

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I understand, and really hope you will be able to get rid of Orban so that the economic conditions in Hungary can get (much) closer to the EU mean.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Gosh, i have been rooting for that since i can vote, and that is more than 20 years now

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 hours ago

Fair. That's the problem of reporting about Europe or even just the EU as a unit. Big place, lots of cultural differences, lots of size differences in economies and populations across those cultures.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Tesla understood that Batteries are expensive so let's make a fancy car so customer are OK to pay for the batteries main brand either didn't have an EV or tried to make a cheap electric car, cutting down the autonomy (e.g. the Renault Zoe). Add the whole We're a progressive company, so we give Tesla rather than diesel mercedes to our executive and Tesla was the main player on the niche market for a decade.

However, as electric car stop being a Niche, every brand has now several electrical models, from a affordable urban one_ to a comfortable and fancy one, If you can afford a Mercedes, Tesla is still an option (but then there is Musk personality not helping) but if you ain't rich, you can go to Volkswagen or Renault depending on how broke you are

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

You're telling me a cool story about how the Tesla business model is supposed to work. My question is why I've seen a grand total of one Tesla on the road across three countries and yet somehow it was seemingly the top EV brand.

Troed's answer above going "Teslas and full electric EVs in general are popular in very specific regional pockets" goes much further towards answering that question, I think.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

My question is why I've seen a grand total of one Tesla on the road across three countries and yet somehow it was seemingly the top EV brand

Could be that those three countries and/or the specific parts of them you traverse aren't typical for all 44 countries of Europe.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago

Or viceversa. Hence the point of even asking in the first place.

I flagged that my impression was anecdotal up front, but the most interesting takeaway of the way this thread ended up playing out is that people are super happy assuming everybody else's fragmentary data or observations are anecdotal but theirs are a typical, statistically significant sample.

Bit of an unexpected way to lose faith in humanity this fine morning, but here we all are, I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Can confirm, my experience says there's been a massive increase in Teslas on the road in my region these last ~3 years, and lately VWs (ID3, 4, Buzz) are increasing too. There's other brands too that are also going up a little, but they're less easily identified at a glance if you don't know the models.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Your point is purely anecdotal. I see lots of Teslas where I live, so there's that. I also see more BEVs than PHEVs, which is also in line with sales figures.

So, to be blunt, I think your perception is skewed or wrong.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 hours ago

Yes, indeed it is anecdotal.

Did the sentence "In the two or three European countries I visit often you definitely see more of those, at least anecdotally" tip you off? I find that very observant.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Hybrids are not electric vehicles. They are a thing of the past to appease the „range anxiety“ crazed people.

They maybe had a justification to exist until 6 or 7 years ago.

It was always wrong to count those as true electric vehicles.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Cool.

So, anyway.

I mean, plug-in hybrids are what they are, and in Europe in particular there's way less charging infrastructure, way more people living in apartments without the ability to set up a home charge station and way more anxiety about charging full electric EVs as a consequence, depending on the region. Hybrids are whatever, plug-in hybrids seem like a reasonable way to bridge that gap.

But I'm already entertaining this conversation way more than I want, because it's going to lead off on a tangent and I don't want to go on that tangent and we're going to end up in how public transport is the real answer and there are millions of threads here to go rehash that conversation.

So anyway.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

in Europe in particular there's way less charging infrastructure

That's the opposite of reality in many cases.

For example, Scandinavia, Germany, and the Benelux countries have better charging networks AND much shorter distances between major population centers than the US in general.

way more people living in apartments without the ability to set up a home charge station

Would have been relevant a decade ago, but now there's public chargers at more and more parking lots and highway rest stops plus at least one major gas station chain has chargers at every station here in Denmark.

I have no doubt that conditions are even better in places like Norway and Sweden where they started adapting much earlier than we did.

way more anxiety about charging full electric EVs as a consequence, depending on the region

Bolded the only part you've been right about so far.

plug-in hybrids seem like a reasonable way to bridge that gap.

They were back when the battery technology and charging infrastructure wasn't in place to support fully transitioning to EVs, but most of Europe is way ahead of you, so as a rule rather than an exception, hybrids are an unnecessary concession, Democratic Party style.

But I'm already entertaining this conversation way more than I want, because it's going to lead off on a tangent and I don't want to go on that tangent and we're going to end up in how public transport is the real answer and there are millions of threads here to go rehash that conversation

TL;DR: you're wrong and tired of trying to justify your false assumptions, so you try to preempt the logic conclusion that many have reached by implying that it's wrong and/or or tedious.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

I live in Germany and wanted to buy a new car 2 years ago. I live in the city in a rented apartment. I can't charge at Work, and neither at home. So I would have to use only public charging stations , the nearest is almost 2km away. Plus, public charging stations are so expensive that you pay more per km than gas for a ICE car (excluding maintenance costs obviously)

I actually wanted to buy an EV, but since I can't charge it, even though I live in a city, I couldn't

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago

Hey, I'll say this, if you want to have this pointless argument with someone who isn't me by just typing "TLDR" and making up some shit you have my wholehearted blessing. Beats having to comb through obnoxious quote blocks to nitpick the smaller fallacies, so go nuts.

Call me when it gets to the full-on name calling, that's always the most exciting part.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

“What a tweest!”