Top Selling Electric Vehicle Brands Worldwide in March

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Last Updated on: 7th May 2025, 12:05 am

In addition to our monthly report on the top selling plugin vehicles in the world, here’s a report on the auto brands and auto groups or alliances that are selling the most plugin vehicles globally.

Top Selling Brands

In March, #1 BYD is now in full export mode. It got 21% of its sales from overseas markets, a stark contrast to the 10% achieved in the whole of 2024. It scored some 350,000 registrations, and with sales at this level already, one must start to wonder how high the Shenzhen make’s sales could go in the second half of the year!

With BYD’s sales targets in 2025 set to 5.5 million units, 0.8 million of them in export markets, where will BYD stop? Ain’t no mountain high enough for BYD? Will the Shenzhen OEM dethrone Toyota as the biggest automotive group before the end of this decade? Now, that would be news….

As for Tesla, it is still in the red. The 151,000 registrations represent a 10% drop compared to the same month last year. So, while it was a peak month, it still hasn’t managed to get close to last year’s levels. And March already had the help of the refreshed Model Y….

Below the top two, #3 Geely continues riding high in its quest to challenge BYD’s domination and surpass Tesla on the way. With a strong portfolio of models in China, Geely now needs to start exporting in high volumes in order to keep up with the pace of BYD.

Wuling was 4th, but far from #3 Geely’s result (88,000 units vs. 67,000). Now, the SAIC brand best watch behind its back, because if March is anything to go by, we might be witnessing the return to form from legacy brands.

Behind #4 Wuling, here are all of this month’s highlights regarding legacy brands:

#5 BMW had its best result since December 2023, with over 55,000 units, mostly thanks to its dynamic duo, the BMW i4 midsizer and the iX1 crossover.
#6 Volkswagen also had its best result since December 2023, with close to 52,000 units, thanks to its ID lineup pulling strong results. More importantly for the German conglomerate were the record results of its subsidiaries, with Cupra (16,498 units), Skoda (16,053), and even Porsche (11,878) posting best ever performances!
Still in the Volkswagen Galaxy, #17 Audi had its best score since … yep, December 2023. It got over 25,000 deliveries, benefitting from the significant volumes that the new Audi Q6 e-tron is now posting.
As for #7 Mercedes, the 38,000 units of March were its best result in a year, and with the hot new Mercedes CLA landing soon (close to 800 km/500 miles range! 320 kW charging speed!), expect the three-pointed-star make to experience significant growth in the near future.
Moving now to Asia, the Koreans, Hyundai and Kia, had record scores in March, with over 26,000 units to the former and over 29,000 units to the latter. Both benefited from added volumes coming from their recently launched small-to-compact models, the Hyundai Inster and Kia EV3.
Finally, in Japan, while the rest of the home team are either still asleep (Mitsubishi, Subaru, Suzuki…) or in soul-searching mode (Nissan, Honda, Mazda), Toyota is moving forward. It scored another record month in March thanks to a record 28,972 units. While it lacks a true best seller (maybe the BZ3x?), Toyota more than makes up for a good lineup of hard working busy bees, like the ever-expanding BZ electric lineup, and tried and tested PHEV models, like the Prius, Crown, RAV4, and C-HR. And with a multitude of models being launched this year, answering the needs of multiple markets (BZ5+BZ7+BZ3x in China, Urban Cruiser in India, and C-HR+ for Europe), expect the Japanese giant to continue posting record months throughout the year.

Outside the top 20, we should also highlight Renault, with the French carmaker posting its best result (16,056 units) since December 2022 thanks to the success of the Renault 5 hatchback and Scenic crossover. Will we see the French brand return to the table soon?

In the YTD table, there wasn’t much to report at the top. BYD is well ahead of everyone else, while #2 Tesla gained a bit more ground over Geely thanks to the usual March delivery peak. Although, the US brand is down by 13% YoY at the end of the first quarter.

Far below the podium, #4 Wuling has enough distance between it and the Germans behind it to continue cruising along.

As for the aforementioned German makes, there was a position change, with BMW surpassing Volkswagen. The Bavarian is now in 5th. With #4 Wuling and #7 Xpeng too far away from these two, expect an entertaining race between these two in the coming months.

Still in Germany, Mercedes climbed another position, with the Stuttgart-based make now in 10th.

In the second half of the table, Aion is in recovery mode. After returning to the table in February, March saw it surge four positions to #14. The Guangzhou-based brand is looking to return closer to the 8th position it held in the table at the end of last year.

Finally, Ford climbed one position, to #19. Although, it remains to be seen how deeply the Dearborn make will be affected by the recent tariff turmoil.

Top Selling OEMs for EV Sales

Looking at registrations by OEM, #1 BYD lost share, going from 24.8% to its current 24.2%, but it is still quite comfortable. It has a lead of 13% market share over #2 Geely, which itself was also down by 0.6%, to 11.2%.

Tesla profited from the end-of-the-quarter peak, gaining 0.2% share and rising to 8.2% share, but it still remains pretty far from runner-up Geely. AND …

… It has to keep an eye on 4th placed Volkswagen Group. With 7.4% share, Volkswagen Group experienced a 0.3% share increase compared to February, gaining ground on Tesla even while the Texan brand had a delivery peak. If Tesla continues to experience sales blues in the coming months, and the early signs are that it will (new orders dropped by more than 20% in April in China, and Europe’s first April results show crashing sales…), then the German OEM might even have a shot at surpassing Tesla this year!

Heck, we might be even looking at a situation where Tesla could be in 5th in March 2026!

This would probably mean that current 5th placed SAIC (5.6%, up by 0.2% compared to February) would also surpass Tesla by then. Although it seems unlikely right now, who would have thought a year ago that Geely would be ahead of Tesla by now?…

Outside the top 5, BMW Group (3.8%, up from 3.6% in February) gained some distance on the competition, while #7 Changan (3.5%) and #8 Hyundai–Kia (3.3%) both surpassed Chery (3.2%), now in 9th.

Comparing the current standing with what was happening a year ago, #1 BYD gained a sizable 4.8% share in a year, Geely changed positions with Tesla, with the Chinese OEM now in 2nd thanks to a 3.4% gain in share (11.2% now, 7.8% then), while Tesla seems almost the opposite, losing one spot all while losing 3.8% share (12% then vs. 8.2% now). This means that Tesla lost almost a third of its market share in just one year.

A year ago, I was imagining Tesla settling with around 10% share. Now?… No idea.

Looking below the podium, while SAIC retained its position and share, Volkswagen Group stayed in 4th but has increased its market share by 1% to 7.4%. Will it be able to reach 8% by year end?

One significant change that is visible by comparing Q1 ’24 with Q1 ’25 is the fall of Stellantis. A year ago, it was 6th, with 4.3% share, while now it is only 10th, with 2.8% share. In a year, the multinational conglomerate has dropped four positions and lost 1.5% share, which is more than a third of the market share it had a year ago. It even makes Tesla’s fall from grace not look that bad in comparison….

Looking just at BEVs, the big news is that Tesla (12.4%) is no longer the best selling BEV maker in the world, having lost that position to BYD (15.4%).

Sure, the year hasn’t ended, but the trends are clear — a year ago, Tesla was leading with 19% share, while now it has lost a third of its market share and dropped to 12.4%. In the same period, BYD increased its share slightly from 14.8% to 15.4%.

The writing is on the wall, folks. Tesla is no longer the leader.

Looking at #3 Geely, it lost share in March (12% in February vs. 11.4% in March), but the Taizhou-based OEM cannot really complain, as it gained a gargantuan 4% share in one year — from 7.4% then to 11.4% now. It basically did the opposite of Tesla, while one lost a third of its market share, the other gained a third.

At this pace, I wouldn’t be surprised if Geely was to surpass Tesla by year end.

In 4th, we have Volkswagen Group (8%). Compared to where it was a year ago, it has surpassed SAIC (7.2%) and gained 1.3% market share (6.7% then vs. 8% now).

#6 Hyundai–Kia had a good month of March, rising from 3.9% to 4% share, keeping the 6th position, and keeping a good distance over#7 BMW (3.8%, up 0.1% compared to February).