Opel, Fiat and Dacia plummet in German electric car sales in 2024

Tesla also lost ground in Germany in 2024

Photo by: InsideEVs

By: Stefan Leichsenring

Jan 9, 2025 at 5:32am ET

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The electric car industry is in the doldrums. Across all brands, no less than 27 per cent fewer electric cars were sold in Germany in 2024 than in the previous year. The crisis therefore hit electric cars hard, while the overall market remained virtually constant. This resulted in an electric car share of 13.5 per cent. This is according to the registration figures now published by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA).

Three major brands in particular suffered from dwindling electric car sales: Tesla sold 41 per cent fewer in 2024, Hyundai including Genesis also had to cope with a drop of 41 per cent. Audi also performed worse than the market as a whole with a drop of 29 per cent, but this is nothing compared to the other losing brands.

Opel Corsa Electric: 2023 noch

Thus, Opel's BEV sales fell from 27,765 to 7,633 units, a drop of 20,000 or 72 per cent. Sales of the Corsa and Mokka Electric, the two sales leaders, virtually collapsed as the Corsa is now in 29th place, whereas last year it still made it into the top ten. The electric versions in particular were bought less, while the combustion models still held up quite well. For example, the BEV share of the two small Opels fell from 26 and 37 per cent to only around 8 per cent (for both).

Fiat, still in 9th place in 2023 with a respectable 23,180 cars, now finds itself in 14th place because only 8,474 electric cars were sold. The culprit here is the 500 Electric, which is in low demand and plummeted from 4th place among the best-selling electric cars to 17th place. Dacia experienced a similar fate with its Spring, which fell from 14th to 27th place.

Fiat 500 Electric: 2023 still

But back to the positives. VW is still the brand with the most electric car sales, while Tesla slipped one place and had to leave BMW behind - no wonder, as BMW even sold slightly more electric cars than in 2023 as a whole. Mercedes sold fewer, but was able to maintain 4th place.

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Brand	Sales 2024	Sales 2023	Change in sales
1. VW	62,108	70,628 (1.)	- 12%
2. BMW	42,066	40,420 (3.)	+ 4% (1 up)
3. Tesla	37,574	63,685 (2.)	- 41% (1 down)
4. Mercedes	33,991	36,703 (4.)	- 7%
5. Skoda	25,308	23,499 (8.)	+8% (3 up)
6. Audi	21,831	30,596 (5.)	-29% (1 down)
7. Cupra	18,248	17,504 (11.)	+4% (4 up)
8. Hyundai / Genesis	16,952	28,845 (6.)	-41% (2 down)
9. MG	14,370	17,504 (10.)	-18% (1 up)
10. Volvo	13,535	8,502 (18.)	+59% (8 up)
All brands	380,609	524,219	-27%

Skoda with its Enyaq and Cupra with the Born made gains in electric car sales. But most notably Volvo improved and achieved an increase of 59 per cent. The Swedish brand, which was a distant 18th in the previous year, has now made it to 10th place.

Now let's take a look at the best-selling models. As it has been the case for what seems like ages, the Model Y is in first place, but the gap to number 2 has narrowed considerably. The Skoda Enyaq is already lurking there waiting for the chance to overtake it. VW ID.4 and 5, which are always counted together by the KBA, slipped down one place.

Model	Sales 2024	Sales 2023	Change in sales
1. Tesla Model Y	29,896	45,818 (1.)	-35 % (-)
2. Skoda Enyaq	25,262	23,498 (3.)	+7% (1 up)
3. VW ID.4/5	21,611	36,353 (2.)	-41% (1 down)
4. VW ID.3	20,101	22,270 (5.)	-10% (1 up)
5. Cupra Born	16,640	17,464 (7.)	-5% (2 up)
6. VW ID.7	14,554	1,095 (>20.)	significantly improved
7. Audi Q4 e-tron	12,871	18,061 (6.)	-29% (1 down)
8. BMW iX1	12,640	14,694 (9.)	-14% (1 up)
9. MG4 Electric	12,004	13,263 (12.)	-9% (3 up)
10. Mercedes EQA	11,476	13,839 (11.)	-17% (1 up)

The Volkswagen ID.7, including the estate version, has now established itself in the top ten, while the MG4 Electric and the Mercedes EQA have also moved up into the top league. The BMW i4 and the Volvo EX30 were able to improve on 2023, but are not (yet) among the top ten best-selling models.

The bottom line

Sorry about all the numbers as we were a bit tempted to play around. We hope we didn't make too many mistakes - after all, where there are lots of numbers, the devil likes to make mistakes. But we are pretty sure about the most important thing: the German electric car market shrank by no less than 27 per cent in 2024. Pretty sad! Tesla and Hyundai are among the big brands that have lost a lot of sales, but Opel, Fiat and Dacia have been hit even harder. Skoda and Volvo, on the other hand, are on the up.

Source: KBA-Statistik (xlsx-Datei)