EV Sales by Brand: Top Electric Car Makers (2025–2026)

BYD sold more electric vehicles than any other automaker in 2025: 4.6 million battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars¹, about 22% of the 21 million EVs sold worldwide, a market that grew 20% on 2024². Geely³, SAIC⁴ and Tesla followed with about 1.6–1.7 million each⁵. Below are the top ten EV brands of 2025, how they are selling so far in 2026, how BYD compares with Tesla, and the best-selling electric car models.

BYD remained the largest electric vehicle manufacturer globally in 2025, selling 4.6 million EVs¹ for a 21.9% share of the 21 million electric cars sold worldwide. Geely followed with 1.69 million (8.0%)³, then SAIC with 1.64 million (7.8%)⁴ and Tesla with 1.64 million deliveries (7.79%).⁵

• Next came Volkswagen Group with a 6.7% share (1.41 million BEVs and PHEVs)⁶, Changan with 5.3%⁷, and Chery at 4.3%.⁸
• BMW Group (3.1%), Leapmotor (2.8%)⁹ and Seres, maker of the Aito brand (2.2%)¹⁰, completed the top ten. Each figure is the group's own reported total of battery-electric and plug-in hybrid (BEV and PHEV) cars, so the scope varies slightly from maker to maker. Groups that publish no comparable global EV figure, such as Stellantis and Dongfeng, are not ranked; Hyundai reported 313,293 BEVs and PHEVs¹¹, which puts it below the top ten.
• The top ten automakers accounted for about 70% of global EV sales in 2025, and seven of them are Chinese.

BYD is still the biggest seller of electric vehicles in 2026, but its lead is narrowing. It sold 3.62 million new energy vehicles from January to October, 2.2% fewer than a year earlier¹³, while SAIC (1.65 million, up 27.7%)¹⁴ and Geely (1.54 million, up 14.5%)¹⁵ kept growing.

• Tesla delivered 1.32 million cars¹⁶ in the first nine months of 2026¹⁷, including 486,532 in the third quarter, its best quarter of the year so far.¹⁸
• Volkswagen Group delivered 678,700 fully electric cars from January to September, down 5.4%, plus about 368,000 plug-in hybrids and range-extender models.¹⁹
• Changan sold 849,832 EVs to the end of October, down 2.2%²⁰, and BMW Group delivered 446,205 from January to September, down 5.1%.²¹
• About 17.5 million EVs were sold worldwide from January to October 2026, up 5% on the same period of 2025.²²

Latest available: October 2026 for the Chinese automakers and September 2026 for Tesla, Volkswagen and BMW. Chery and Leapmotor are left out until their official year-to-date figures can be confirmed.

BYD has sold more electric vehicles than Tesla every year since 2022 once plug-in hybrids are counted. In 2025 it also outsold Tesla in fully electric cars over a full year for the first time: 2,256,714 battery-electric passenger cars¹ against Tesla's 1,636,129 deliveries.⁵

• Tesla's deliveries peaked at 1,808,581 in 2023²⁴ and have fallen in each of the two years since, while BYD's total rose from 1.86 million in 2022²⁵ to 4.60 million in 2025.
• BYD's battery-electric sales grew 27.9% in 2025, while its plug-in hybrid sales fell 7.9% to 2,288,709.¹
• Tesla sells only battery-electric cars and reports deliveries to customers; BYD reports sales volume, including exports.

The EV market should keep growing in 2026 as new technology arrives and leading automakers expand into new markets.

Key trends and forecasts:

• Electric car sales are expected to reach 23 million in 2026, about 28% of all cars sold.²
• Geely is aiming to sell 3.45 million vehicles in 2026, about 14% more than in 2025, including 2.75 million under the Geely brand.³
• Electric cars are set to reach almost 60% of car sales in China in 2026 and one in three in Europe, while in the United States they have held at 6–7% of sales since mid-2025.²
• Tesla delivered about 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, and its latest annual report no longer mentions the 20 million-a-year goal or a factory in Mexico.³¹