A sharp uptick in demand for electric vehicles propelled the German automotive market in April. Total new registrations reached 249,163 units, marking a 2.7 percent increase year-on-year, according to data released by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) on Thursday. Since the start of the year, nearly 950,000 new cars have been registered, up five percent compared to the same period in 2025. However, pre-pandemic levels remain elusive: according to the VDA industry association, the market is still more than a fifth below 2019 volumes.

The primary catalyst for sales growth was a significant rise in demand for electric vehicles. New EV registrations soared by 41.3 percent in April to 64,350 units. Currently, more than one in four new cars registered in Germany is fully electric. Chinese manufacturers were the main beneficiaries of this trend, albeit from a low base: BYD tripled its sales to 4,705 vehicles compared to the previous year. Leapmotor sold 1,355 cars, more than four times its prior-year volume, while MG saw a 62 percent increase with 2,827 units sold.

In the broader market, Mercedes-Benz posted a 4.9 percent gain to 23,291 cars in April following a recent period of softer performance. Conversely, European market leader Volkswagen saw its sales contract by 6.7 percent to 46,101 vehicles, while BMW recorded a marginal decline of 0.5 percent with 22,435 units.

(Reported by Christina Amann. Edited by Olaf Brenner. For inquiries, please contact our editorial team at Berlin.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and economics) or Frankfurt.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for corporate and markets)