Record results and high growth rates: The best-selling e-car in 2021 is Tesla's Model 3, but most e-cars overall are sold by another brand.
A memorable year for the German car market has come to an end. The Corona crisis, short-time work, supply bottlenecks and a shortage of semiconductors are causing a sharp slump to just 2.62 million new registrations. The minus (-10.1%) compared to the previous year only tells half the story, because in 2020 Corona had already caused severe turbulence on the new vehicle market. Compared to the pre-crisis year of 2019, however, new registrations fell by almost 30 percent, with 3.6 million cars sold in the year as a whole.
This year 2019, when the car world was still okay, also tells a different story. 63,281 fully electric cars were sold two years ago, in a whole year. In contrast, there were 48,436 e-cars in 2021 – just in December. This also marks the end of the year for the best-selling month of all for the Stromer. A total of 355,961 electric cars were registered for the first time in 2021, giving BEVs a market share of 13.6 percent. Increase compared to 2020: +83.3 percent. Increase compared to 2019: +463 percent!
Top 20 e-cars in December 2021
In addition to the significantly larger range of brands and models, the significantly increased subsidy bonus, which gives e-car buyers a discount of up to 10,000 euros, has a significant share in this boom and brings many BEVs into the price range of comparable combustion engines.
2021 also saw new records and milestones in the electric car market. With the Dacia Spring, interested parties got the cheapest electric car to date, with the electric S-Class a new king of range, with the VW ID.4 a new beacon of hope for Volkswagen. Tesla stormed the charts with the Model Y, but instead of the new Gigafactory in Grünheide as planned, the previous Model Ys were made in China.
Top 10 BEV brands 2021
It was already clear in November that Tesla would rock the market with the Model 3 and will be the best-selling electric car in 2021. With an exclamation mark in December, 6,096 first registrations for the Model 3, the brand made the overall victory clear. A curiosity in December: A model crossed the finish line in second place that can no longer be ordered: The VW E-Up clearly outperforms its modern ID.X colleagues. The E-Up also came second for the year as a whole.
Video: The best-selling e-car in the super test
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With this, the small Stromer also secured the large VW Group first place for the best-selling e-cars in the German market. With 72,110 new BEV registrations, VW leaves the US brand Tesla far behind. Nevertheless, the table should give the German car industry food for thought: With Renault and Hyundai in third and fourth place among the best-selling e-cars, it becomes clear how thin the air is for German car manufacturers in this segment.
Conclusion
Records in the year of the disaster: Despite the massive slump in registrations overall, electric cars only know one direction: Up. Within two years, sales have increased almost sixfold. BEVs now have a market share of 13.6 percent. While Tesla's Model 3 was Germany's best-selling electric car in 2021, the brand rating goes to VW.
