Germany: Plug-In Electric Car Sales Exceeded 40,000 In September 2020

The biggest European plug-in market is booming! Records everywhere, but ID.3 was not the best-selling model.

By: Mark Kane

Oct 14, 2020 at 7:37am ET

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September 2020 was a really amazing month in terms of passenger plug-in electric car sales in Germany, as it makes 2019 results look weak - despite those being were strong results at the times too.

The total number of registrations for the very first time exceeded 40,000 units - 41,315 to be precise (all-time high), which once again required us to significantly increase the scale on our charts.

The growth amounted to 337% year-over-year. As the overall market increased by "only" 8.4% to 265,227, plugs-ins reached a new all-time high market share of 15.6%! On average, that's one plug-in per 6.4 new cars.

Interestingly, last month slightly more BEVs were sold than PHEVs (PHEVs were higher in seven out of nine months so far in 2020):

BEVs: 21,188 – up 260% at 8.0% market share
PHEVs: 20,127 – up 463% at ≈7.6% market share
Total: 41,315 – up 337% at ≈15.6% market share

Plug-in electric car registrations in Germany – September 2020

New registrations year-to-date:

BEVs: 98,369 – up 84% at ≈4.8% market share
PHEVs: 105,882 – up 300% at ≈5.2% market share
Total: 204,251 – up 175% at ≈10.0% market share

The proportion of BEVs to PHEVs is similar, although PHEVs are expanding at a higher rate (from lower levels in 2019).

Sales of models/brands

The top-selling all-electric model in Germany was the Renault ZOE, which also set a great monthly record of 3,603 units. ZOE is also the #1 year-to-date (15,730). The Tesla Model 3 also noted an outstanding record month of 2,776 (although Model S/X was only 148/141).

Renault ZOE

Tesla Model 3

The all-new Volkswagen ID.3 had 1,771 registrations, which is of course a lot, but not yet on par with Tesla Model 3 or Renault ZOE, and not that far above Volkswagen e-Golf (1,210) and Volkswagen e-up! (909).

A pretty strong result was also recorded by the Hyundai Kona Electric with 1,526 registrations. For all interested in how Polestar 2 coped in Germany, well 147 were registered.

Mercedes-Benz turned out to be the top brand, having several strong plug-in hybrid models.

Brands that recorded the highest number of plug-in car registrations were: