by Overall car sales in Europe grew by 5 percent to 790,000 last month, buoyed by continuing enthusiasm for electric cars across the continent. Plug-in hybrids saw particularly strong momentum, with registrations climbing to 83,900 in August, a 59 percent increase on the previous year that lifted their market share to 10.6 percent.
Related: Global Electric Car Sales Jumped 25 Percent While Canada Dropped By A Third
According to Jato Dynamics figures, battery-electric cars (BEVs) also posted gains, up 27 percent compared with August 2024, giving them a record 20.2 percent market share, up 3.6 percentage points year on year. That brings Europe’s total for fully electric registrations in 2025 to 1.54 million so far. Analysts caution, however, that the headline growth figures for BEVs may not tell the full story
Numbers With Caveats
“The data shows that there was strong demand for BEVs in August, however a 27 percent increase is less significant than it looks when you consider how widely they are being promoted across Europe,” said Felipe Munoz, Global Analyst at JATO Dynamics. “The new record market share for BEVs achieved last month has been partly distorted by the fact that Italy – typically a less enthusiastic adopter of BEVs – is usually quiet during August,” Munoz added.
Europe Car Sales
| Aug ’24 | Aug ’25 | Diff. | |
| Total | 752,847 | 790,177 | +5.0% |
| BEV | 125,494 | 159,746 | +27% |
| PHEV | 52,820 | 83,872 | +59% |
| SUV | 408,561 | 451,737 | +11% |
| Chinese brands | 19,707 | 43,529 | +121% |
| Chinese-owned Western brands | 23,601 | 19,613 | -17% |
SWIPE
Jato Dynamics
China’s Growing Momentum
Yet Europe’s traditional manufacturers may find little comfort in these results. The bad news for Europe’s carmakers is that interest in Chinese brands is growing at an even faster rate, and it’s coming at the expense of some very big household names.
Audi shifted 41,300 units in August, and Renault moved 37,800. Both are major players in the market but were outmaneuvered by Chinese brands who registered 43,500 sales, up a massive 121 percent versus August 2024, Jato reports.
Granted, that ‘Chinese brands’ figure is made up of 40 different automakers, but Jato points out that 84 percent of the total was achieved by only five of them, namely MG, BYD, Jaecoo, Omoda and Leapmotor. Whichever way you cut it it’s bad news for Europe’s legacy brands, and is only going to get worse, though at least Stellantis’s deal with Leapmotor means it gets to celebrate the win.
Even on their own, the Chinese brands took some big scalps. MG registered more cars than Tesla and Fiat, BYD beat Suzuki and Jeep, and Jaecoo and Omoda outsold Alfa Romeo and Mitsubishi.
“European consumers are responding positively to the growing, competitive line-up from China’s car brands,” Jato analyst Felipe Munoz said. “It appears that these brands have successfully tackled the perception and awareness issues they have experienced.”
Hybrids, not just EVs
It’s not only in the EV segment that Chinese brands are making gains. They’re also doing great in the PHEV space, where they’re not hobbled by the same tariffs applied to their fully electric vehicles.
More than 11,000 Chinese-brand plug-ins were sold this August compared with only 779 in the same month last year, BYD is now the eighth most popular PHEV brand overall and the BYD Seal U, Jaecoo J7 and MG HS bagged three spots in the top 10 best-selling models list.
However, if you simply looked at the table of 10 most-registered models, you’d never guess how quickly China was moving forward. The list contains no names from the People’s Republic and continues to be dominated by Volkswagen and Renault.
The VW T-Roc (which has since been facelifted) was the region’s biggest seller, with the Dacia Sandero scooping second spot and Toyota’s Yaris Cross bagging third. Tesla’s updated Model Y was the best-selling EV, but its sales were down 37 percent and it was nowhere to be seen in the overall top 10 cars table.
