Headlines
New car sales in Europe rise for fifth month helped by EVs
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on December 23, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on December 23, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
European car sales rose in November, driven by EV registrations. Volkswagen and Renault saw growth, while Tesla's market share fell.
Dec 23 (Reuters) - New car sales in Europe rose year-on-year in November for a fifth consecutive month, helped by an increase in EV registrations in markets including Germany, Italy and Spain, data from the European auto lobby ACEA showed on Tuesday.
Battery electric registrations, a proxy for sales, reached a market share of 21% in the European Union, 26% in the United Kingdom and 98% in Norway.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
Europe's car industry faces challenges, including competition from China, U.S. import tariffs and difficulties in profitably meeting domestic regulations for EV adoption.
The European Commission last week made public a plan to abandon an effective 2035 ban on combustion engine cars after pressure from the region's auto sector, marking the bloc's biggest retreat from its green policies in recent years.
But analysts said for the longer term, EVs are the future.
BY THE NUMBERS
Sales in the European Union, Britain and the European Free Trade Association rose 2.4% to 1.1 million cars in November, ACEA data showed.
Registrations at Volkswagen and Renault rose 4.1% and 3% year-on-year, respectively, while they fell 2.7% at Stellantis, a drop after three months of growth.
Tesla registrations fell by 11.8%, as record sales in Norway mitigated losses in other markets. They were up 221.8% at its Chinese competitor BYD. Tesla's market share in the month was 2.1%, while BYD's 2%.
Total EU car sales rose 2.1% to almost 900,000 vehicles. Registrations of battery electric, hybrid electric and plug-in hybrid cars were up 44.1%, 38.4% and 4.2%, respectively, to account collectively for 65.6% of the bloc's registrations, up from 56% in August 2024.
KEY QUOTE
"Despite the recent positive momentum, overall volumes remain well below pre-pandemic levels," the ACEA said in a statement.
(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi; editing by Barbara Lewis)
An electric vehicle (EV) is a type of vehicle that is powered by one or more electric motors, using energy typically stored in rechargeable batteries.
Market share is the percentage of an industry's sales that a particular company controls. It is used to measure a company's competitiveness in the market.
Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are fully electric vehicles that run on electricity stored in batteries and do not use any gasoline or diesel.
The European Commission is the executive branch of the European Union responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, and upholding EU treaties.
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