The year 2024 was a dramatic one for VW. Strikes, night-long collective bargaining with IG Metall and an agreement shortly before Christmas severely depressed the mood in Wolfsburg. 2025 begins with good news for the car company: As last year, VW occupies the top three places in terms of top new registrations and can once again call itself the most popular car manufacturer in Germany. This emerges from figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority, which were published on January 8th. Overall, however, German car buyers in 2024 were slightly more cautious than in the previous year. New car registrations fell by one percent: 2,817,331 cars were newly registered in 2024, compared to 2,844,609 in 2023.
Teslas not in the top ten
The VW Golf was able to defend its top position; the compact car from Wolfsburg has been racing away from the competition for years and will continue to confirm its reputation as the most popular car in Germany in 2024. With 100,183 new registrations, the Golf was bought significantly more often than its closest rival, which also comes from VW: The T-Roc, like last year, is in second place, but with a considerable gap: 75,398 times, according to the authorities the small SUV receives approval. While Tesla’s Model Y has fallen out of the top ten, positions itself Opel with two models instead of just one as in 2023. You can find the entire top ten new registrations in the following photo series.
VW had by far the largest market share in 2024. Wolfsburg accounted for 19.1 percent of all new registrations. Behind them are Mercedes and 9.2 percent BMW with 8.3 percent. The models from German car manufacturers are still the most popular in this country. The most successful import brand is the VW subsidiary Škoda; its models account for 7.3 percent of new cars sold. The Ingolstadt car brand Audi, also part of the Volkswagen AG, is the fifth most popular car brand in the country with a 7.2 percent market share.
Fewer electric cars than last year
Sales of electric cars have shrunk compared to the previous year: After the federal government stopped funding for electric cars in the form of the environmental bonus in December 2023, sales figures fell significantly. In 2023, 524,219 cars with electric drives were sold; in 2024 there were 380,609 cars. This corresponds to a decrease of 27.4 percent. The share of electric cars in total registrations is 13.5 percent.
The decline also hit Tesla: The American automaker only sold 37,574 vehicles in 2024, 41 percent less than the previous year. The popular Model Y, which was still in the top ten in 2023 with 45,818 registered vehicles, was only purchased 29,896 times in 2024. Also the Chinese competitor BYD failed to establish itself in Germany in 2024: 2,891 cars were sold, which was another 30.2 percent less than in 2023.
SUVs continue to be popular
Gasoline engines are still the most popular. They had a market share of 35.2 percent. Plug-in hybrids also grew, recording an increase of 9.2 percent compared to the previous year. Diesel accounted for 17.2 percent of the market in 2024, just 0.7 percent less than the previous year.
The SUV was the most sought-after vehicle segment with a 30.2 percent market share, exemplified by the T-Roc and the Tiguan in second and third place in the top ten. They are followed by cars in the compact class with an 18.2 percent market share, including the VW Golf be the frontrunner. The fact that SUVs, widely decried as fuel guzzlers, enjoy a particularly high reputation among Germans is also reflected in their CO₂ balance: on average, they caused 4.2 percent more CO₂ emissions per kilometer than in 2023.