In December 2025, electric cars outsold petrol-powered ones in Europe for the first time, despite the European auto industry lobbying to maintain its polluting ways. The huge increase in EV sales, led by BYD, was not accompanied by a similar boost in Tesla sales, with the company still seeing significant year-over-year declines in its global sales performance. 8% over the previous year, though sales have not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
However, EV sales positively boomed in the region, particularly at the end of the year. 8%. 4%.
This year-end 51% boom was enough to add a new feather to the cap of BEVs: outselling petrol-only cars across all of Europe, at least for the month of December. For the past few years, EV sales have been creeping up as petrol-only car sales have been creeping down, and the two finally crossed in the month of December. Note that this is the BEV-only share exceeding the petrol-only share.
Collectively, BEVs and PHEVs accounted for a third of new car registrations, and petrol-powered hybrids accounted for another third. The numbers are even better when including non-EU EFTA countries (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein) and the UK. UK, for example, saw a third of new cars being electric in December, a sales level that meets the country's 2026 goal already.
7% respectively. 6%, so the year ended much stronger for EVs than it started. So, there's a reasonable chance that next month, gas cars will outsell BEVs again, but the trend is clear – EVs are rising, fossil cars are falling.
And those EVs are being fueled by cleaner and cleaner energy sources, as well. In 2025, wind and solar overtook fossil fuels for electricity generation, even in a country like Germany, which has little sun. The success of BEVs happened despite the European auto industry lobbying successfully to marginalize its own future by committing further to the shrinking, fossil-powered piece of that pie, and surrendering to overseas competition that is not slowing down in its race towards electrification.
Speaking of overseas competition: the individual brand which saw the highest sales increase over the course of 2025 was BYD, with a whopping +228% full-year sales increase, increasing from 39k to 129k cars sold over the course of the year. 2%. This was the highest sales drop of any company, excluding the two sub-brands of Jaguar and Lancia.
Tesla's sales drop is exceptional given that it is an all-EV brand, and the EV market is rising so rapidly. One would expect fossil-only brands to do poorly as EV sales rise, but Tesla has bucked that trend, largely due to its CEO attempting to orchestrate a white supremacist takeover of the continent. Given what went on the last time someone tried to do that, Europe is understandably not enthused.
Tesla's poor performance in the EU market is a clear indication that the company needs to re-evaluate its strategy and adapt to the changing landscape of the automotive industry. The rise of EVs and the decline of fossil fuels are inevitable trends, and companies like Tesla need to be at the forefront of this shift.
