Around 700,000 new electric cars are expected to hit the roads in Germany in 2026. image: t-online
The Association of the Automotive Industry believes that electric cars will grow significantly in Germany in the coming year. The announced government funding for private electric cars gives hope.
Dec 8, 2025, 3:37 p.mDec 8, 2025, 3:37 p.m
The Association of the German Automotive Industry (VDA) expects around 693,000 new pure electric cars (BEVs) to be registered next year. That would be around 30 percent more than is expected to be permitted in 2025 as a whole, as the association announced. Already this year, electric cars in our neighboring country increased by around 38 percent, while in Switzerland they only grew by 9 percent.
Including other alternative drives such as plug-in hybrids, the VDA has almost one million new registrations of vehicles with electrically supported drives. The number of new plug-in hybrids, however, is likely to decline slightly: by five percent to 286,000 new vehicles.
Prerequisite: Private e-car funding is coming
In relation to purely battery-powered cars, the forecast from the German automobile association VDA is slightly below that of the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, which believes that around 740,000 new electric cars are possible in the coming year – provided that the funding for private electric cars announced by the federal government for 2026 comes. The VDA also sets this condition for its own assessments.
However, the industry association sees little recovery for the overall market. Across all drive types, the VDA believes a total of 2.9 million new car registrations are possible for the coming year. That would probably be around two percent more than this year. However, these numbers are still a long way from the previous record year of 2019, before the pandemic. At that time, based on the forecast for 2026, almost 20 percent more new cars were registered.
(t-online/dpa/oli)