Chinese brands took 10.1% of new battery-electric cars registered in eight European countries between January and September 2026, up from 7.0% a year earlier, according to evstats.org’s compilation of national registration data. BYD, Leapmotor, MG and XPeng supplied 87% of Chinese-brand registrations, and Germany and Spain 74%.
The eight countries are Switzerland, Czechia, Germany, Spain, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden. The UK, France, Italy and Norway are not in the count, and plug-in hybrids are not either. We count a brand as Chinese when it is headquartered or developed in China; Volvo, Polestar, smart and Lotus, European brands with Chinese owners, are counted separately. Last updated 7 October 2026.
Jump to: brands at a glance · countries · ownership and definition · tariffs · specs and prices · limits · method · questions
The brands at a glance
Sixteen Chinese brands each registered at least 60 battery-electric cars in the eight countries. Table 1 lists them with their owners, their registrations, where each sells most, and what their cars look like in the evstats.org catalog.
| Brand | Owner | 2026 | 2025 | Change | Biggest market | Median range (km) | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BYD | BYD | 38,515 | 20,475 | +88% | Germany | 362 | €44,990 |
| Leapmotor | Leapmotor; Stellantis JV | 24,810 | 5,961 | +316% | Germany | 355 | €31,900 |
| MG | SAIC | 14,741 | 13,075 | +13% | Germany | 360 | €42,990 |
| XPeng | XPeng | 12,198 | 3,937 | +210% | Germany | 458 | €56,100 |
| Zeekr | Geely | 4,448 | 1,970 | +126% | Sweden | 380 | €48,950 |
| Deepal | Changan | 3,043 | 12 | from 12 | Spain | 385 | €44,990 |
| Geely | Geely | 1,681 | 0 | new | Spain | 350 | €38,990 |
| Jaecoo | Chery | 1,193 | 45 | from 45 | Spain | – | – |
| Omoda | Chery | 1,156 | 638 | +81% | Spain | – | – |
| Lynk & Co | Geely | 986 | 606 | +63% | Spain | – | – |
| Dongfeng | Dongfeng | 430 | 717 | −40% | Spain | – | – |
| JAC | JAC | 314 | 134 | +134% | Switzerland | 240 | €28,490 |
| GAC | GAC | 245 | 8 | from 8 | Finland | – | – |
| Nio | Nio | 93 | 419 | −78% | Netherlands | 415 | €74,500 |
| Voyah | Dongfeng | 82 | 77 | +6% | Netherlands | 395 | €49,990 |
| GWM | Great Wall Motor | 63 | 1,411 | −96% | Spain | 340 | €41,990 |
| All other Chinese brands | 196 | 469 |
Registrations: evstats.org compilation of national registration data. Catalog columns: evstats.org catalog, figures last refreshed between May and September 2026, mostly in May; a median is shown only for brands with at least three catalog variants. “Change” is the percentage change, or the 2025 figure where it was under 50 cars. “All other Chinese brands” are Chinese brands with too few cars to list, plus Omoda/Jaecoo where one registry reports the two together. A dash means the catalog has fewer than three variants for that brand. In the catalog columns, GWM includes its ORA variants and Nio includes Firefly.
Who is growing, and who is leaving
BYD registered 38,515 battery-electric cars, 88% more than in 2025. Leapmotor registered 24,810, 4.2 times its 2025 figure of 5,961. MG, second in 2025, grew 13% to 14,741 and fell to third. XPeng more than tripled to 12,198. All Chinese brands together registered 104,194 cars against 49,954 a year earlier, 2.1 times as many, while the whole battery-electric market in these countries grew 1.45 times.
The growth is narrow. BYD and Leapmotor added 36,889 cars between them, 68% of the 54,240 that all Chinese brands added; with XPeng the three account for 83%. The four largest brands were 86.6% of Chinese-brand registrations this year and 87.0% last year, so the order at the top changed but its weight did not.
Three brands went from almost nothing to a few thousand cars. Deepal went from 12 to 3,043, Geely from none to 1,681 and Jaecoo from 45 to 1,193. Changan said in March 2025 that it would bring the Deepal S07 to Germany and the Netherlands from April 2025, with Spain and Italy to follow in 2026 (electrive). Spain is the biggest market for all three.
Three moved the other way. Dongfeng fell 40% to 430, Nio fell 78% from 419 to 93, and GWM fell from 1,411 to 63. For Nio, battery-tech.net reported in March 2026 that it was set to move Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden to a distributor model, and electrive reported in June that it would slow its overseas expansion. Both describe a restructuring, not an exit; neither gives a reason for the fall. For GWM, electrive reported in April 2026 that the Ora 03 was being discontinued in the UK, outside our count, and we found no explanation for its fall here.
Is the share still rising?
Yes. Chinese brands’ share of battery-electric registrations in the eight countries was 5.4% in the first quarter of 2025, then 7.7%, 7.7% and 7.8% through the rest of the year, and 8.3%, 9.5% and 11.9% in the first three quarters of 2026. The nine-month 10.1% therefore understates where the market is now: July to September 2026 ran at 11.9%, and September alone at 11.8%.
The Chinese-owned European brands moved the other way: 7.4%, 7.8%, 6.6% and 7.6% through 2025, then 6.7%, 6.7% and 5.8% in 2026. For comparison with outside data: Dataforce figures reported by Bloomberg put Chinese brands at 15% of battery-electric deliveries across Europe in June 2026 (TechNode, 24 July 2026). Our eight countries show 9.8% for that month. The Dataforce figure covers more countries and uses a brand list we cannot see, so the two cannot be reconciled.
Where Chinese brands sell
The 10.1% average hides a wide spread. Spain is at 27.7%, up from 18.5%. Ireland is at 14.6%, Switzerland at 12.4% and Czechia at 9.0%. Germany, the largest market by far, is at 8.0%, up from 5.5%; Sweden is at 4.8%. Our data show where Chinese brands sell, not why: the registration files do not record incentives, dealer networks or pricing, and we have not verified the drivers behind Spain’s share.
| Country | Share 2026 | Share 2025 | Chinese-brand cars 2026 | All battery-electric cars 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spain | 27.7% | 18.5% | 28,542 | 102,966 |
| Ireland | 14.6% | 9.5% | 5,126 | 35,188 |
| Switzerland | 12.4% | 3.6% | 5,619 | 45,464 |
| Czechia | 9.0% | 3.6% | 1,247 | 13,806 |
| Netherlands | 8.6% | 7.8% | 9,405 | 109,576 |
| Germany | 8.0% | 5.5% | 48,441 | 604,144 |
| Finland | 5.1% | 3.4% | 1,469 | 28,679 |
| Sweden | 4.8% | 4.5% | 4,345 | 90,871 |
Source: evstats.org compilation of national registration data.
Germany alone supplies 48,441 cars, 46% of the Chinese-brand total. Germany and Spain together account for 74% of Chinese-brand registrations, up from 69% in 2025. Any statement about “Chinese brands in Europe” built on these numbers is a statement about those two markets plus a few smaller ones.
Who owns them, and what counts as Chinese
We count a brand as Chinese when it is headquartered or developed in China. That follows the footnote in JATO Dynamics’ study of Chinese brands in Europe, which defines the term as brands “headquartered and/or developed in China” (JATO). Our brand file applies it to 57 brands. A few European importers of rebadged Chinese cars are counted too: Italy’s competition authority fined DR Automobiles €6 million in 2024 for implying that its cars were built in Italy when they are made in China (Carscoops).
We hold a second group apart: the European brands inside a Chinese-owned group, namely Volvo, Polestar, smart, Lotus and LEVC. We report them separately because a Volvo is not a BYD. The line is a judgement call: smart, for example, is a 50:50 joint venture of Mercedes-Benz and Geely, so we count it with the European brands, and counting it as Chinese would lift the headline share from 10.1% to 11.0%.
Who owns whom, as of 7 October 2026. Leapmotor is sold outside China through Leapmotor International, a joint venture announced in 2023 in which Stellantis holds 51% and Leapmotor 49%; Stellantis also took about 20% of Leapmotor for €1.5 billion (Car News China). Geely Automobile Holdings completed the privatisation of Zeekr on 22 December 2025 (CnEVPost). Zhejiang Geely Holding owns about 78.7% of Volvo Cars, and Polestar is controlled by Geely’s founder Li Shufu through Geely entities, with Volvo Cars still holding about 19.9% (Polestar’s 2025 annual report on Form 20-F, data as of 17 April 2026). smart is a 50:50 joint venture of Mercedes-Benz and Geely Holding (InsideEVs). We took the remaining owners from company materials and did not check them independently: MG belongs to SAIC, Lynk & Co and Lotus to Geely, Omoda and Jaecoo to Chery, Voyah to Dongfeng and Deepal to Changan. BYD, XPeng, Nio, GAC, JAC and GWM are each their own group in our brand file. Ownership changes, so the date matters.
Brand and factory do not always match. Volvo’s EX30, a European brand with a Chinese owner, started production in Zhangjiakou, China in 2023 (Volvo Cars press kit). XPeng’s G6 and G9, a Chinese brand, have been assembled for Europe from kits by Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria since September 2025 (electrive). The count in this study is by brand, not by factory.
The Chinese-owned European brands. Volvo outsells BYD in these eight countries but grew far more slowly: 43,247 battery-electric cars against BYD’s 38,515, but only 32% more than in 2025. Polestar registered 12,986, down 4%. smart registered 9,219, up 82%, and Lotus 167. Together the four registered 65,619 cars, 6.4% of the market, down from 7.2% in 2025 even though their volume rose, because the market grew faster. Add them to the Chinese brands and the combined share is 16.5% in 2026 against 14.2% in 2025. We show both numbers for that reason.
EU tariffs on China-built electric cars
The EU applies countervailing duties (extra import duties meant to offset subsidies) to battery-electric cars built in China. The European Commission’s notice on Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2754 sets the rates in Table 3, applicable from 30 October 2024.
| Producer group | Duty |
|---|---|
| BYD | 17.0% |
| Geely | 18.8% |
| SAIC (the owner of MG) | 35.3% |
| Tesla (China-built cars) | 7.8% |
| Other cooperating companies | 20.7% |
| All other companies | 35.3% |
The Commission published guidance on minimum-price undertakings on 12 January 2026 and, on 10 February 2026, accepted the first one, for the CUPRA Tavascan (Automotive World). We have not checked for changes since February, so check the Commission’s trade-defence pages for the current position. The duties apply to cars built in China, not to every car from a Chinese brand, which is one reason where a car is built matters (see the section above).
What their cars offer: specs and prices
Registrations say what people bought. The evstats.org catalog says what the cars are, using the WLTP range, the DC charging peak and the starting price listed for each variant. We compared the 162 variants from Chinese brands that the catalog lists as available with 1,103 from all other brands, leaving out the Chinese-owned European brands. The median is the middle value when the cars are sorted.
| Group | Catalog variants | Median catalog price | Median WLTP range (km) | Median DC peak (kW) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese brands | 162 | €46,295 | 365 | 140 |
| Chinese-owned European brands | 119 | €56,900 | 400 | 207 |
| All other brands | 1,103 | €55,305 | 395 | 150 |
The typical Chinese-brand variant lists for 16% less than the typical variant from other brands (€46,295 against €55,305), with a median WLTP range 30 km shorter and a DC peak 10 kW lower. The gap holds by body type too (Figure 3): SUVs at €44,990 against €53,990, hatchbacks at €31,695 against €35,900 and sedans at €53,795 against €76,180. We leave out wagons and vans: the catalog has only 8 Chinese-brand wagons and 4 vans.
These are unweighted catalog medians: they count every listed variant once, whether or not anyone buys it, and they include variants that are not sold in every country. Weighted by registrations the picture is a little cheaper. The ten best-selling Chinese models have a median catalog price of €40,490 when each model is counted by the cars registered (Table 5). All catalog ranges are WLTP figures, not the CLTC cycle used in China.
If you are shopping, our catalog shows list prices 12% to 29% lower than the same body type from other brands (hatchbacks 12%, SUVs 17%, sedans 29%) and a median WLTP range about 30 km shorter. Resale value, reliability and service are open questions these numbers cannot settle (see “What these numbers do not show” below). To put specific cars side by side, use the comparison tool, open a brand page such as BYD, Leapmotor, MG, XPeng or Zeekr, or check the cheapest electric cars and fastest charging EVs lists.
The ten most-registered Chinese models
The five most-registered Chinese models were the BYD Dolphin Surf (10,809), Leapmotor T03 (10,526), Leapmotor B10 (8,309), MG MG4 (7,699) and XPeng G6 (7,409). Together the ten in Table 5 are 68% of Chinese-brand registrations, and the top five alone 43%. The Leapmotor T03 is a German story: Germany took 74% of its registrations, while the Dolphin Surf was registered in only five of the eight countries.
| Model | Registrations | Countries with registrations | Biggest market | Median catalog price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BYD Dolphin Surf | 10,809 | 5 | Germany | €26,990 |
| Leapmotor T03 | 10,526 | 7 | Germany | €18,900 |
| Leapmotor B10 | 8,309 | 8 | Germany | €31,150 |
| MG MG4 | 7,699 | 8 | Germany | €41,490 |
| XPeng G6 | 7,409 | 8 | Germany | €47,600 |
| BYD Sealion 7 | 5,842 | 8 | Germany | €53,990 |
| BYD Atto 3 | 5,611 | 7 | Germany | €41,990 |
| BYD Seal | 5,533 | 7 | Germany | €49,490 |
| BYD Atto 2 | 5,215 | 6 | Spain | €36,990 |
| MG S5 | 4,364 | 8 | Germany | €40,490 |
Registrations: evstats.org compilation of national registration data. Median catalog price: the median over the model’s catalog variants (evstats.org catalog, figures last refreshed May–September 2026). The registration-weighted median in the text counts each model’s median price once per car registered.
What these numbers do not show
Plug-in hybrids. This study counts battery-electric cars only. Dataforce reports a much higher figure for plug-in hybrids: Chinese brands at 34% of plug-in hybrid deliveries in Europe in June 2026 (data reported by Bloomberg), a single month, on a brand list we cannot see (TechNode).
Eight countries, not Europe. The UK, France, Italy, Norway, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Portugal do not have a complete battery-electric brand list for every month from January to September in our data, so we left them out rather than guess. Poland has a complete list for 2026 but its 2025 series starts in August, which breaks the comparison, so it is out of the headline although it is in our data files.
Catalog prices are not transaction prices. They are starting prices listed for each variant, in euros. Discounts, leasing offers, taxes and incentives change what a buyer pays, and some variants in the catalog are not sold in every country.
Outside Europe. Searchers often ask which is the top EV brand in China, whether BYD is sold in the USA, and why Americans cannot buy BYD. This page cannot answer them: our data are European registrations, and we have no verified US or China-market series.
Three things registrations cannot tell you. We take no position on them, and each has a source:
- Resale value. Caixin reported on 14 August 2026, citing unnamed valuation agencies, that Chinese battery-electric cars keep 40–44% of their value after three years and 60,000 km, against 46–48% for Tesla (Caixin). We could not check the underlying data.
- Reliability. The TÜV Report 2026, a large German inspection survey, did not list BYD, MG, Nio, XPeng or Leapmotor individually, because their volumes in Germany were too small, as reported by autocolumn.com.
- Data governance. The think tank MERICS argues that EU rules on vehicle data leave a gap that favours Chinese carmakers (MERICS, 29 October 2025).
How we counted
- Source. National registration data compiled by evstats.org, licensed CC BY 4.0. Each country’s publisher is named on the European registrations page. Files: brands-monthly.csv, totals-monthly.csv, brand-classification.csv and one CSV per month, for example 2026-09. For the monthly picture and every country, see the September 2026 edition and its Chinese brands section.
- Window and countries. January to September 2026 against January to September 2025, in Switzerland, Czechia, Germany, Spain, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden. These are the countries where the source publishes a complete battery-electric brand list in every one of those 18 months. The quarterly series uses the same eight countries and every month from January 2025 to September 2026.
- Share. Chinese-brand registrations divided by all battery-electric registrations in the same countries and months: 1,030,694 in 2026 and 712,670 in 2025, a rise of 44.6%. Brand counts come from the brand rows and market totals from the total rows of the monthly files.
- Checks. We computed the headline figures from brands-monthly.csv and again from the monthly edition files, and the two agree. We recomputed the country shares and catalog medians from the same files, and they matched. For the six largest brands, the model totals add up to the brand totals within two cars.
- Catalog. The evstats.org catalog, variants listed as available on 7 October 2026 (1,386 of 1,390), less two records whose names do not match their brand field (a SsangYong filed under ORA and a Tesla filed under BYD). Its figures were last refreshed between May and September 2026, mostly in May, and are the manufacturers’ listed specifications and starting prices, so they can lag the market. Chinese brands in the catalog are 24 brand names: BYD, MG, XPENG, Zeekr, NIO, Firefly, Leapmotor, GWM, ORA, Hongqi, Geely, Aiways, Changan, JAC, Voyah, Dongfeng, GAC, Seres, Skywell, Elaris, Jaecoo, Maxus, Omoda and Lynk&Co. Missing values are ignored in each median. Model prices in Table 5 match each model name to its catalog variants.
- Ownership and context. Checked on 7 October 2026 against filings and press releases where we could reach them, and otherwise against the news source named next to each statement.
- Refresh. We update this page when each new monthly edition is published. To cite it: evstats.org, “Chinese EV brands in Europe: registrations and specs”, 7 October 2026, from national registration data (CC BY 4.0), https://evstats.org/blog/chinese-ev-brands.