Who is winning the electric car race? It depends on what you measure.
Over four articles we compared what carmakers promised, what they sell and what they earn, using only their own reports. There is no single winner. Each measure crowns a different company.
The leaders, one measure at a time
Eight carmakers side by side
Put the main numbers next to each other and the picture becomes clear: scale, electric share and profit point in different directions.
| Fully electric cars sold | Electric share | Plug-in share | Margin | 2030 promise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla | 1,636,129 | 100% | 100% | 4.6% | Electric only |
| BYD | 2,256,714 | 49.6% | 100% | 5.0% | Plug-in only |
| Volkswagen Group | 983,120 | 10.9% | 15.7% | 1.8% | No longer restated |
| BMW Group | 442,059 | 17.9% | 26.1% | 5.3% | Kept: 50% by 2030 |
| Toyota | 199,137 | 1.9% | 3.6% | 6.1% | 2026 goal dropped |
| Mercedes-Benz | 197,311 | 9.1% | 20.5% | 5.0% | Dropped |
| Volvo Cars | 151,830 | 21.4% | 45.5% | 3.4% | Dropped |
| Stellantis | Not published | Not published | Not published | −0.5% | Dropped |
2025 figures. Electric share: fully electric cars as a share of each company's sales (BYD: of its passenger cars). Plug-in share adds plug-in hybrids; Mercedes-Benz counts cars only; BYD and Tesla report only plug-in cars. Margin: the closest operating measure each company reports (Tesla and BYD whole company, Toyota automotive for April 2025–March 2026, Volkswagen Automotive Division, BMW automotive EBIT, Mercedes-Benz Cars adjusted, Volvo Cars EBIT excluding joint ventures and one-off items, Stellantis adjusted). Definitions differ, so compare with care.
What the series found
- Promises were rewritten, sales kept growing. Ten of eleven European carmakers softened or stopped repeating their electric goals between 2024 and 2026, yet Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and BMW all sold a larger share of electric cars in 2026 than in 2025. Read the article →
- How you count changes who leads. BYD's 4.6 million “new energy vehicles” include plug-in hybrids and buses. Counting fully electric cars only, BYD overtook Tesla at the end of 2024 and led in 7 of 11 quarters since 2024. Read the article →
- Electrified is not the same as electric. Toyota sells the most cars with an electric motor, but fewer than 2 in 100 were fully electric in 2025. In January–September 2026 hybrids reached 48% of its sales and fully electric cars 4%, yet Toyota cut its own electric forecast twice this year, to 463,000 cars for April 2026 to March 2027, far from the 1.5 million a year it once promised for 2026. Read the article →
- Electric has not paid yet. Ten of twelve carmakers earned lower margins in 2025 than in 2024. The most profitable sold luxury or hybrids, and the largest write-downs came from electric plans that ran ahead of demand. Read the article →
The question for the next decade
The companies that moved fastest, like Volvo and Porsche, paid for it in margins and write-downs. The ones that moved slowest, like Toyota, kept their profits but are now racing to catch up on electric cars. BYD shows a third path: huge scale in both electric cars and plug-in hybrids. Will the next decade reward the fastest transition, or the most adaptable one? We will keep tracking it, one quarterly report at a time.
Every company, explained from its own reports
Open any of these carmakers in Whatco, compare two side by side, and get a notification when they publish new results.
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