Automotive News Europe — 2026-01-20
Automotive Industry
The Volkswagen brand added two new sales titles in 2025.
Along with being Europe’s overall top-selling brand for the 21st consecutive year, VW passenger cars won the battery-electric vehicle sales race, topping Tesla, and dethroned Mercedes-Benz to become the region’s leader in plug-in hybrid sales.
VW brand increased its BEV sales 56 percent to 274,417 last year, while Tesla’s volume decreased 27 percent to 238,765. In 2024, Tesla sold nearly twice as many BEVs as VW, winning 326,714 to 175,654.
Overall, the European market for battery-electric car sales grew by 30 percent to 2,582,595 in 2025, according to preliminary figures from market researcher Dataforce covering 98 percent of the volume in the EU, U.K. and EFTA markets.
VW brand also passed Mercedes in sales of plug-in hybrids cars, increasing its PHEV sales 205 percent to 159,173.
Mercedes slipped to third behind BMW after its PHEV sales fell 4.8 percent to 135,878. BMW sold 142,285 PHEVs, a gain of 15 percent. Overall, PHEV sales rose by a third last year to 1,273,180.
VW has been Europe’s top-selling brand for all drivetrains since it passed Renault in 2005.
Last year VW increased sales 6 percent to 1,444,194 in a market that grew by 2.3 percent to 13.3 million, according to Dataforce.
One of the only powertrains in which VW didn’t rank in the top five was full hybrids.
VW will enter the full hybrid sector with the new T-Roc this year. The T-Roc hybrid will compete against hybrids from No. 1 Toyota, which sold 626,675 cars with the powertrain last year, a decrease of 8.5 percent. Renault was second (287,364, + 17 percent) with China’s MG in third place (141,660, + 272 percent). Overall hybrid sales increase 9.6 percent to 1,704,454 last year, according to Dataforce.
Not surprisingly, VW brand was also Europe’s No. 1-seller of gasoline and diesel models.
Both of these powertrains lost ground in 2025, with sales of gasoline cars declining 7 percent to 5,815,620. Sales of diesels finished the year down 19 percent to 1,524,349.
What were Europe’s top segments in 2025?
Europe’s largest segment in 2025 was compact SUVs. The category accounted for 2,429,259 registrations last year, a rise of 17 percent, according to Dataforce.
The segment received a boost from the Skoda Elroq, which contributed 94,102 new sales last year, and the recently launched Dacia Bigster, which added 66,078 to the total in 2025. Established nameplates such as the VW Tiguan (197,000), Hyundai Tucson (151,034) and Kia Sportage (149,156) were the segment leaders.
Europe’s second-largest segment, small SUVs, grew 1.2 percent last year to 2,243,008. The VW T-Roc and Toyota Yaris Cross were in a close race throughout the year. In the end, the T-Roc prevailed, helped by a 3.8 percent sales increase to 200,217. The Yaris Cross fell 2.1 percent to 190,565. The Peugeot 2008 finished in third place with sales of 171,438, gain of 5.9 percent. The Dacia Duster and Ford Puma rounded out the top five.