Germany's switch to electric cars hits record high - even in used cars

Growing numbers of German drivers are switching to electric cars, with the used vehicle market now also seeing a surge in uptake, according to new data from insurer HUK Coburg published on Tuesday.

Among all private customers who switched their HUK-insured car in the second quarter, nearly one in eight - 12% - moved from a combustion engine vehicle to a pure electric car. That is twice as many as in the full year 2025 and the highest quarterly figure by far since the survey was introduced at the start of 2020.

For new cars, the rate jumped to a record high of 24.9%, surpassing the previous record set at the end of 2022 by 1.8 percentage points.

The development in the used car segment is particularly striking. This market is more than twice the size of the new car market in Germany and has until now lagged behind electric vehicles. Here too, however, there was a sharp jump to 7.9%, a clear record and more than double the figure from the same quarter a year earlier.

Among frequent drivers covering more than 12,000 kilometres per year, the switch rates to electric cars are considerably higher still.

"The ramp-up of electric mobility has reached a new dimension, driven in part by the sharp rise in fuel prices," said Jörg Rheinländer, the HUK Coburg board member responsible for motor insurance.

He said he was convinced that used electric cars could "become a game-changer," and added: "This trend could potentially be accelerated further if buyers of used electric cars, as well as new car buyers, were able to benefit from the state electric car subsidy."

The state subsidy is also likely to have played a role in the high number of new electric vehicle registrations in July. Volkswagen (VW) sold the most pure electric cars — both in July alone and since the start of the year — according to figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority, which cover both private and company vehicles: just over 10,000 in July and almost 60,000 since the start of the year.

In July, BMW came second with 7,700 and Škoda, VW's Czech subsidiary, was third with 6,400. Looking at the period since the start of the year, however, Škoda takes second place with 43,100 ahead of BMW with 38,700. Mercedes and Audi follow behind.

Elon Musk's Tesla managed a comeback. After its share of the all-electric market crashed from 15.5% to 5.6% last year, it shot up by almost the same extent in the first half of this year to 12.2%.