EVwire brief: The EU registered 203,417 new battery-electric cars in May, up 42.9% year-on-year, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). Tesla drove a good portion of that growth.
Tesla’s EU registrations more than doubled in May, up 152.4% to 21,767, 10.7% of the bloc's battery-electric total. Across the wider European market of the EU, EFTA and the UK, Tesla rose 107.9% to 28,610, a fourth straight month of growth.
Chinese automakers performed well in May. BYD outsold Tesla across Europe during the month with 32,380 registrations, up 136.6%, while Leapmotor jumped 465% to 9,945 and Chery climbed 244% to 27,412.
Tesla spent more than a year losing ground in Europe before this run. The slide tracked the Model Y changeover, the pull of cheaper Chinese rivals, and a customer backlash tied to Elon Musk's politics and his stint leading the U.S. DOGE effort.
February was the first month of higher registrations since December 2024, by Morningstar's count, and the line has pointed up since. Year-to-date, Tesla has registered 89,180 vehicles in the EU, up 77.3%, and 118,068 across Europe as a whole, up 57.2%. The rebound lines up with strong national results like France, where May registrations rose 655% year-on-year.
The recovery also tracks Tesla's push to put FSD Supervised on European roads. The Netherlands became the first country in the bloc to approve the driver-supervised system in April, and Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark and Belgium have since recognized the Dutch sign-off while EU authorities weigh approval across the bloc.
Model Y volumes out of Giga Berlin drove much of Tesla's European rebound.
Context:
The wider market gives the recovery some context. Battery-electric cars made up 20% of EU registrations across the first five months of the year, while the overall market grew just 3.2% in May, so Tesla and BYD were both riding a shift already underway.
Hybrids remain the single most popular choice at 37.8% of the EU market. As electrive notes, though, ACEA lumps full and mild hybrids together, so that share includes cars that cannot drive on electricity alone. Vehicles with ICE combined have slid from 38% to 30.1% of the market in a year.
Source: Morningstar, ACEA
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