Summary
- Volkswagen beat Tesla in European EV sales across the first three months of 2025, data shows.
- Registrations for VW EVs are up more than 150%, while Tesla lost huge ground.
- However, the Model Y and Model 3 remain Europe’s top two most-registered EVs.
Can’t speak for other countries, but in Australia BYD is smashing it.
They represent incredible value for money and it’s not like we’ve got a local industry to protect - our conservative government made sure of that.
We’re already the world’s dumping ground for shit vehicles that don’t meet emissions standards, so having a non-Elon Musk EV alternative is something people are grabbing with both hands. We bought a BYD Seal Performance for $70k AUD a little over a year ago. For that money you get an incredibly comfortable sedan that does 500k on a charge, costs about $1 per 100km to run, and does 0-100 in 3.8 seconds.
EU vehicles are crazy overpriced by comparison, and because they try and position Mercedes / BMW / VW as luxury brands here the servicing and repair costs are through the roof. Part availability also sucks, with everything being a 6+ week lead time. We’ve owned European vehicles on several occasions and never again.
What about Japanese options?
Like what?
Korea has a few (Hyundai, Kia / same,same) but the only Japanese options are [P]HEV or the Toyota BZ4X which is… ugly… if it didn’t have a Toyota badge I don’t think they’d sell any of them. Few old Leafs still hanging in there, but if you want to go more than 100k at a time that’s them ruled out.
300km+ range for the Leaf these days and they’ve got the Ariya that has over 400km of range, but I just checked and they don’t seem to offer either in Australia…
Guess you’re truly stuck with Chinese and Korean models then…