Volkswagen overtook Tesla as Europe's top EV seller in 2025 | Hacker News Reader

Volkswagen overtook Tesla as Europe's top EV seller in 2025

reuters.com

103 points_fizz_buzz_33 comments

That’s also just Volkswagen the brand. If you add up VW, Skoda, Cupra etc. its not even remotely close and they overtook Tesla a while ago..

I don't think Americans understand how large Volkswagen is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group

https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/brands-and-brand-groups-...

European EV sales by auto group per quarter:

https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Q...

There's no BYD in those charts?

It's only showing the top 8 groups. BYD are presumably part of the missing percentage (show it as a bar graph to see how much isn't covered).

Looking at the data in more detail, BYD are selling about half of Tesla. (85k across Europe in 2025 vs 185k for Tesla)

https://www.bike-ev.com/news/cars/byds-270-europe-sales-surg... But these numbers don't split out only EVs. So assuming these numbers are correct, BYD would be below even Geeley which seems... odd. It's probably availability bias, but I see BYD cars every day and that's not true for Geely.

Depends on the country (I presume you're in the EU). In the Netherlands, there are loads of Geely vehicles (Volvo, Polestar, Lynk&co and the occasional Zeekr) on the road while BYD is relatively rare (except for city busses).

London, UK: BYD was rare, but is rapidly growing now. Expect similar in the EU.

Zeekr is coming.

Polestar/Geely is there and the new models are popular for small-volume expensive cars.

MG (owned by SAIC) is another new entrant with low price and high volume.

Kia/Hyundai vehicles are also common for a long time.

Which country? It's surprisingly variable. Note that Geely owns Volvo (or, at least, Volvo Car; the company that makes HGVs is separate) and Polestar; you won't see much under their own brand.

Well that would explain it, plenty of Polestars around; I guess I knew somewhere in my mind that they owned Volvo/Polestar now but I totally forgot when writing that

For all the press, BYD isn't actually that big in Europe. As you can see, Geely (another Chinese brand, which gets very little press) is actually bigger.

If you look at the data for Spain, where they're quite big, you'll see them, but they're not getting into the top 8 for Western Europe as a whole (which is what this site shows).

Toyota’s absence is an embarrassment. Shocking failure of strategy.

Toyota is a car company. Toyota sells cars. Toyota has sold more cars than any other automaker for the last six years straight:

https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/toyota-remained...

Toyota had record sales in 2025:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota...

Toyota's strategy has worked.

I think they may catch up quite quickly. In Ireland, I'm suddenly seeing huge numbers of bZ4X, particularly as taxis; Toyota has a tremendous amount of brand loyalty, and I'm fairly sure that there are a lot of people who were waiting to buy an electric car until they could buy a _Toyota_ electric car.

Here in Norway they didn't want to send the bZ4K to a large cold weather range test recently performed[1].

Suzuki, which has a model based on the Toyota Urban Cruiser, disappointed quite a lot, with lowest range of those tested at 224 km (140 miles) and a 40% deviance from WLTP (best ones had 30% deviance).

Maybe decent in warmer climates, but probably not something for us further north.

On top was the Lucid Air, with 520 km (323 miles). The test started at -20C (-4F) and ended up at -30C (-22F), so the cars that went the furthest had it tougher.

[1]: https://www.tek.no/nyheter/nyhet/i/d4mMkA/verdens-stoerste-r...

> Volkswagen (VOWG.DE), opens new tab overtook Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab in sales of fully-electric cars in Europe in 2025

This is pretty nonsensical. The VW _brand_ overtook Tesla in EV sales. However, VW AG (ie the VOWG.DE referenced above), has been outselling Tesla since about 2020. Audi and Seat and so forth are not independent companies in any meaningful way and their cars are for practical purposes the same as those sold under the VW brand.

I’m in Europe and on my fourth Tesla, but it’ll be my last. No more of my money is going Musk’s way.

It's already difficult getting your Tesla repaired, it's going to be a nightmare when Melon pivots away completely from EV which he will once it's obvious that he's getting crushed all around, not just in sales but design, functionality, etc.

The Skoda Enyaq (VRS model specifically) is the best EV I've driven/travelled in by quite some margin. Exceptionally good. I mention it because VAG group.

In what way is Škoda Enyaq the best?

By nearly every subjective measure I can think of: comfort, cabin finish, general external aesthetics, performance, driving enjoyment, infotainment, range, etc. Your mileage may vary, of course. Pun somewhat intended.

The whole story of Skoda is interesting because they were bought by Volkswagen as "budget" brand but kept their own development department. They get consistently pushed down as the cars shouldn't compete with VW but they do. It's not surprising they were able to adjust to EVs better than VW. If anything VW should learn something from their own Skoda but from what i've heard the VW deparments got very comfy and quite old (not in a good way).

Tesla has largely accomplished its original mission of “accelerating the world to sustainable energy”.

Tesla forced the entire industry to accelerate to EV. Toyota could have been that pioneer and mover.

Earlier this year Tesla adjusted their mission to push for “a world of amazing abundance” based on renewable energy, autonomous driving, robotics, and AI.

https://www.tesla.com/about

Tesla deserves credit but it’s not Tesla that accelerated the world. It’s China.

Even today Ford’s CEO talks about Chinese cars when discussing what they’re worried about, not Tesla.

And then there’s also the battery cost revolution which is again being driven by Chinese companies, whereas Tesla’s in house design has largely failed.

Tesla defined the modern EV market through Silicon Valley innovation, while Chinese companies like BYD focused on vertical integration and affordability, eventually overtaking Tesla in sales in 2025 (both started operations around 2003).

Tesla’s entry into the Chinese market via the Shanghai Gigafactory (2019) acted as a "catfish," forcing local Chinese "new forces" like NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto to lower prices and accelerate technological innovation.

You can’t ignore Nissan and the Leaf. I would say they have been just as influential.

Leaf didn't capture the mind of people that EVs are good options.

Tesla made long-distance driving in EVs possible. Tesla made EV sexy, desirable. It catalyzed the Chinese EV industry. Nissan didn't remotely accomplish those things.

Like someone else said, people think in terms of a pre-Tesla and post-Tesla world. I don't know that there's a strong case against that framing.

> Tesla deserves credit but it’s not Tesla that accelerated the world. It’s China.

China supplied the batteries, sure.

But there's definitely a pre-Tesla and post-Tesla world regarding the vehicles themselves. Tesla changed the image of EVs available to the general public by making performant and low maintenance vehicles that looked futuristic and were capable of things basically only supercars could, for a fraction of the price. And they built the DC charging infrastructure all over the world to support long-range trips, which was non-existent before Tesla. EVs before Teslas were basically niche experiments.

> EVs before Teslas were basically niche experiments.

The Nissan Leaf (which predates any Tesla production car) was pretty much an electric version of previous Nissan cars. The VW eGolf (contemporaneous with the Tesla Model S) was _literally_ an electric version of a previous VW car. The VW ID.3 and 4, which are currently leading the European market, are also pretty much like VW electric cars. In practice, 'weird' electric cars mostly failed.

... I mean Tesla's first real production electric car (Model S) came out after the Leaf, and only a few months before VW AG's first production electric cars (VW had previously occasionally put out an electric version of the Golf on a small-scale basis, going back to _1992_, but those don't count, any more than the Tesla Roadster does). What _really_ happened is that, circa 2010, the economics started working; lithium ion batteries got into the cost range where it could work.

EVs were inevitable, and the timing was largely dictated by battery pricing.

Leaf and VW's electric offerings didn't capture the mind of people that EVs are good options.

Tesla made long-distance driving in EVs possible. Tesla made EV sexy, desirable. It catalyzed the Chinese EV industry. Neither Nissan nor VW remotely accomplished those things.

Like someone else said, people think in terms of a pre-Tesla and post-Tesla world. I don't know that there's a strong case against that framing.

This is very US centric way of looking at it. This whole hero story about Tesla might be required to push US market but would it matter to EU or China? It's very likely market would transition to EVs because of environment/economics probably even in similar pace.

In EU environment movement is very strong especially in the rich countries. BYD is company from 95. They have been leading up to this for 30 years. If you take out the theatrics... it's actually China/BYD who are pushing everyone (especially EU carmakers) to EVs. If anything Tesla is on a trajectory of remembered as a one of car industry biggest disasters and wasted potentials.

Leaf captured enough of the mind of the people that it took until early 2020 for Tesla's cumulative number of cars sold to surpass Leaf's.

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