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Looking at sales data year by year, or month by month, it can be hard to really notice significant long-term trends. However, stepping back and looking at a chart that covers several years, you can spot some quite interesting things.
I recently did this with regards to auto brands’ share of EV sales in 13 European countries. The biggest takeaway point was Tesla’s drop in market share, as well as the overall decline in how much share of the market the top 8 brands accounted for together.
Several readers brought up auto group sales, implying that comparing auto groups made more sense than comparing auto brands. I like doing both, but I hadn’t even looked at the group split yet at that time. It’s time for that now….
The decline of the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance is the most clear and dramatic. It dropped from 39.4% shared in Q1 2017 to 6% in Q4 2025 (so far). Shocking. What a dramatic throwing away of market leadership. Of course, we know there was the whole controversy and drama of Carlos Ghosn getting imprisoned in Japan (seemingly even set up) and then eventually escaping in luggage. Ghosn was a leader and a bull on EVs, but it seems others in the company were not. Anyway, the days of the Renault ZOE and Nissan LEAF dominating European EV sales are long over.
In a similar vein, even if not nearly as extreme, Tesla dropped from 22.6% in Q1 2017 to 7.7% in Q4 2025. I guess this is especially shocking, though, because Tesla is 100% trying to sell fully electric vehicles, whereas the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance has very mixed targets and priorities.
BMW went from 16.6% share to 8.8% share in the same time period, rounding out the auto groups that significantly declined.
So, let’s get to some positive stories now!
Courtesy of Volkswagen
Volkswagen Group rose from 6.6% share to 29.6% share! That’s ridiculous growth in share of the market, especially considering that the market overall is expanding a lot and there’s more competition every day. It’s nearly the reverse of what happened at Tesla, but with an even bigger gap from 2017 to 2025.
Geely rose from nothing to 6.6% share. Stellantis went from 2.75% share to 8.6% share. Mercedes went 3.3% share to 5.9% share. Not too shabby. Can these auto groups keep going with their positive momentum, or will they drop off a bit in market share in coming quarters and years.
Also note that these 8 leading auto groups accounted for nearly 100% of EV sales in these markets for a long time, but they are now down to almost 80% of the EV market.
Any other big notes or takeaways from looking at this table and comparing auto groups’ performance over the past 9 years or so?
Note that the data doesn’t cover all of Europe. It doesn’t include France, one of the biggest EV markets, and Belgium, for example. Apparently, it’s just much harder to get complete information for them.
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