Tesla‘s registrations in Germany more than tripled in September to 12,552 vehicles, the highest monthly total since December 2022 and enough to move the brand back ahead of BYD for the year.
The figure was up 268.7% from 3,404 a year earlier, the Federal Motor Transport Authority, known as the KBA, said on Monday.
Tesla took 4.9% of all new passenger car registrations in Europe’s largest car market, up from 1.4% in August, and ranked eighth among all brands.
The KBA said Tesla recorded the largest increase among higher-volume import brands.
It was Tesla’s third-best month on record in Germany and its second-best September, according to Roland Pircher, who tracks the company’s registration data.
The surge came two months after a July in which Tesla registered 367 cars in Germany, and no explanation for either extreme has been given by the company.
Past 2024, Short of 2023
Tesla has registered 44,810 vehicles in Germany in the first nine months, up 201.9% from 14,845 a year earlier.
That is already above its full-year total of 37,574 in 2024 and more than double the 19,390 it recorded in 2025, when its German sales fell 48%.
It remains short of 2023, when Tesla registered about 63,700 vehicles in the country.
Matching that would take roughly 18,900 registrations in the fourth quarter.
BYD registered 6,040 vehicles in September, up 85.6%, and 42,788 in the first nine months. Tesla had trailed the Chinese giant by 4,490 units at the end of August and now leads by about 2,000.
Unlike Tesla, BYD also sells plug-in hybrids in Germany, and its entry models start below 30,000 euros ($33,600).
A Year of Swings
The September figure caps a year in which Tesla’s German registrations have moved more sharply from month to month than those of any other volume brand.
Tesla registered 1,301 vehicles in January, 2,276 in February and 9,252 in March.
It followed with 3,149 in April, 5,111 in May and 7,768 in June, a second quarter in which registrations quadrupled to 16,028.
July then brought 367, a 67% drop from a year earlier and less than half the 750 that had been Tesla’s low point in 2025.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the July figure, auto motor und sport reported at the time.
August recovered to 3,034.
The third quarter totals 15,953, up 168% from 5,955 a year earlier, and September alone accounts for 79% of it.
March made up 72% of the first quarter in the same way.
Tesla has long concentrated European deliveries in the final month of each quarter, though the pattern this year has been more pronounced.
A Third of the Market Is Electric
Tesla’s gain came in a market that is moving quickly toward battery power.
German registrations rose 9.0% in September to 256,774, and battery electric vehicles accounted for 88,599 of them, or 34.5%, which Pircher said is a record.
That is almost double the 45,495 registered a year earlier, when the share was 19.3%.
Tesla’s share of the battery electric market was 14.2% in September, against 7.5% a year earlier and 4.4% in August.
Private registrations rose 28.5%, while commercial registrations fell 1.2%.
Germany reinstated a purchase incentive this year, a 3 billion euro ($3.4 billion) program that opened in May and applies retroactively from January 1.
It pays between 3,000 euros ($3,400) and 6,000 euros ($6,700) for a battery electric car, depending on household income and number of children.
Chinese brands continued to expand alongside Tesla.
Leapmotor registered 2,652 vehicles, up 191.4%, MG 4,206, up 60.8%, and XPeng 1,250, up 418.7%.
Volkswagen, the market leader, fell 6.1% to 42,461.
Offers That Ended in September
The September figure coincided with the end of two Tesla offers in Germany.
Tesla dropped a 2,000 euro ($2,200) bonus on the Model Y rear-wheel drive on September 16, two months after restoring it.
It kept 0% financing for buyers who took delivery by September 30.
The Model Y rear-wheel drive lists at 39,990 euros ($44,800) before a 980 euro destination and registration fee.
Whether those deadlines pulled registrations into the month cannot be established from the KBA data.
The Model Y accounted for 21,426 of Tesla’s 32,258 German registrations through August, and the Model 3 for 10,557, according to KBA model data.
The split for September has not yet been published.
Pay Rise at Grünheide
The registration figures arrive days after Tesla raised pay at its German plant.
Wages at Grünheide, near Berlin, rose on October 1 by 5% for production workers and by 4% plus a performance-related bonus for skilled staff, the company said in late September.
Tesla puts the starting salary in production at about 45,750 euros ($51,300) a year.
It last raised pay by 4% in December 2025.
The IG Metall union, which has sought a collective agreement at the plant, said the increase was not enough.
“It is good that there is a pay rise,” said Jan Otto, the union’s District Leader for Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony.
“But it is only a drop in the ocean,” he said, adding that Tesla “is well below collective bargaining standards.”
A management-aligned slate won 41% of the vote in the plant’s works council election in March, ahead of IG Metall on 31%.
Grünheide is Tesla’s only vehicle factory in Europe and employs more than 12,000 people, the company says.
Output of the Model Y rose from about 5,000 vehicles a week in June to just under 6,500 in early September, and Tesla scheduled three special shifts last month toward a target of 7,500 a week by mid-October.
The plant supplies more than 30 markets, so German registrations reflect only part of what it produces.
Tesla also plans to make battery cells at the site from 2027, at a planned 18 gigawatt-hours a year.
No FSD Yet
German customers still cannot use Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software.
The Dutch regulator approved the system in April, and eight European Union countries now recognise it, the latest being Croatia on September 29.
Germany has declined to approve it nationally and is waiting for an EU-wide procedure.
The KBA is in contact with the Dutch regulator and Tesla over the software’s ability to exceed speed limits, a German transport ministry official wrote in September.
The EU’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles meets on Tuesday, and its draft agenda lists a discussion, not a vote, on the Dutch request.
It would be the third session to take up the file without voting on it.
A Fleet of 200,000
Tesla had 200,976 cars registered in Germany on January 1, up 5.1% from a year earlier, according to KBA stock data.
That was about one in ten of the 2.03 million battery electric cars on German roads.
Germany’s rebound contrasts with Tesla’s global picture.
The company’s worldwide deliveries fell 2.1% in the third quarter to 486,532, and it does not break them down by region.
