Nio registered two vehicles in Germany in March, bringing the EV maker’s total for the first quarter to eight units in Europe’s largest automotive market.
First quarter registrations represented a 87.5% year-over-year decline while every major Chinese competitor posted triple-digit growth in the same period.
The March figure represented a 90.5% decline from the same month a year ago, according to data published on Tuesday by KBA, Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority.
Last month, a total of 294,161 new passenger vehicles were registered across Germany — a 16.0% increase from a year ago.
Rivals Accelerate
The contrast with other Chinese and non-traditional EV brands operating in Germany was stark.
BYD registered 3,528 vehicles in March, a 327.1% increase from a year ago, according to KBA data. The Shenzhen-based automaker captured 1.2% of the German new car market during the month.
Leapmotor, which entered Germany through its partnership with Stellantis, posted a 318.1% year-over-year surge and reached 0.5% market share.
XPeng rose 211.9%, reaching 0.2% market share and its strongest month ever as it prepares to begin deliveries of its P7+ sedan in the country.
Tesla registered 9,112 vehicles in March, up 315.1% from a year ago, taking 3.1% of the market.
Among premium EV brands, Lucid registered seven vehicles in Germany in February — the most recent month for which model-level data was available at the time of publication. Polestar registered 296 in the same month.
Nio was the only Chinese brand listed by the KBA with a year-over-year decline in March.
Eight Units in Q1
Nio‘s first-quarter total of eight registrations in Germany compares with 64 in the same period a year ago — a decline of 87.5%.
The quarterly breakdown was one registration in January, five in February, and two in March.
The figures reflect a market where Nio has effectively stopped supplying new vehicles.
Every model the company currently offers in Germany — the ET5, ET5 Touring, ET7, EL6, EL7, and EL8 — is a 2023 or 2024 build.
Updated versions of the ET5, ET5 Touring, ES6, and EC6 were launched in China in May 2025 but have not been brought to Europe.
Registration Data in Context
As EV recently reported, Nio‘s European registration figures are further complicated by its subscription model.
Under the subscription programme, vehicles are registered once when they first enter the fleet.
When one customer’s contract ends and a new subscriber takes the same vehicle, no additional registration is generated. This means registration data captures only first-time vehicle entries — not the total number of active users.
A person familiar with the company’s European operations told EV that the majority of registrations during Nio‘s initial European rollout were first-time fleet entries for subscription vehicles, and that the current near-zero figures partly reflect the fact that the fleet has already been registered and is now cycling internally without generating new data points.
For outright purchases, each transaction generates a registration as with any conventional brand.
Restructuring
The results come as the company overhauls its European operations.
EV exclusively reported on March 5 that Nio quietly dismantled its European management structure in February, splitting the region into six separate departments and shifting sales toward a dealer and distributor model, according to an internal email seen by EV.
The company fired its head of German operations as part of the restructuring programme, EV reported in a separate exclusive.
Germany has cycled through four general managers since Nio entered the market in 2022.
The brand operates four flagship Nio Houses in Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg.
Financial Backdrop
The 2023 annual report of the Nio subsidiary in Germany showed a net loss of more than €58 million on gross revenue of approximately €9.4 million, as first reported by Manager Magazin.
Negative equity ballooned from roughly €22.3 million to nearly €80.4 million within a single year.
Financial data from 2024 and 2025 has not yet been released by the company’s German unit.
Nio has been facing a 20.7% countervailing duty on top of the EU’s standard 10% import tariff since October 2024, bringing total levies on its vehicles imported from China to 30.7%.
