The Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA), Germany's federal motor transport authority, published the April 2026 new-car registration figures on 7 May. The headline number is calm: 249,163 passenger cars (Pkw) newly registered, up +2.7% year-on-year. The story underneath the headline is anything but calm.
BEV Registrations Up 41% YoY
The most consequential figure in the KBA release is the BEV count. 64,350 new battery-electric cars were registered in April 2026, a market share of 25.8% and an increase of +41.3% over April 2025. That is a sharp rise, and it comes after the December 2023 abrupt cancellation of the federal EV purchase subsidy dragged BEV registrations down 27.4% across 2024.
This is the recovery many had stopped expecting. AutoNergy's reading, not a KBA finding, is that the mechanism is a mix of cheaper Chinese-built models entering the German market, paired with Volkswagen Group's price cuts on the ID.3 and ID.4, plus pent-up demand from corporate fleets that paused purchases through the worst of the subsidy chaos.
The Powertrain Split
April 2026's full powertrain breakdown:
- Hybrid (incl. PHEV): 39.2%: 97,753 cars, with PHEV alone at 27,546 units
- BEV: 25.8%: 64,350 cars (+41.3% YoY)
- Petrol: 21.4%: 53,420 cars (-20.0% YoY)
- Diesel: 13.0%: 32,437 cars (-13.8% YoY)
Diesel's share is now nearly half what it was in 2019, and the long-term trend is unambiguous. Petrol is also in retreat. Pure petrol fell 20% YoY in absolute terms. Combined, internal-combustion-only powertrains (petrol + diesel) accounted for just 34.4% of April registrations. That is a number that would have been inconceivable in a German monthly bulletin five years ago.
Average CO₂ Drops 11% YoY
The KBA reports average CO₂ emissions of newly-registered cars at 97.6 g/km for April 2026, down 10.7% on April 2025. That is the consequence of the BEV share lift plus the petrol/diesel decline.
Brand Standings
Volkswagen led the German market in April with an 18.5% share, ahead of Mercedes-Benz (9.3%) and BMW (9.0%). Those three brands alone account for over a third of the market, a more concentrated picture than UK or Ireland, where the leaderboard is wider.
Private vs commercial split: 64.6% commercial, 35.4% private. Private registrations rose 8.2% YoY, slightly faster than the headline market, another signal that household consumer demand is recovering, not just fleet.
What April Signals
Germany ended 2025 with BEV share at 19.1%. If April's 25.8% reading is representative, AutoNergy's own projection is a full-year average of roughly 22-25%, well above the 2025 mark and a rebuke to the narrative that BEV demand had structurally collapsed after the subsidy cliff. Watch the May and June numbers for confirmation; if BEV holds above 22% through the summer, the back half of 2026 will be the strongest German EV market on record.
The Germany dashboard on AutoNergy lets you compare month-over-month BEV share to the long ICE-decline trend.