8 VW Group models among the 10 best-selling BEVs in Germany in the first 4 months of 2025
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8 VW Group models among the 10 best-selling BEVs in Germany in the first 4 months of 2025
- The German BEV market is currently experiencing a strong recovery in 2025 compared to 2024. In the first four months of 2025, there were 157,007 BEVs registered on this market, compared to 109,603 units in the first four months of 2024, which represents an increase of 43%.
- It should be noted that the German BEV market fell by 11.5% in the first four months of 2024 compared to the first four months of 2023, due to the cessation at the end of 2023 of subsidies for the purchase of BEVs implemented.
- Which carmaker has benefited the most from this revival of the German BEV market? And which has benefited the least?
- The carmaker that has benefited most from the revival of the German BEV market is undoubtedly the Volkswagen Group, which has gone from 31,728 sales in the first four months of 2024 to 75,019 units in the first four months of 2025, its market share increasing from 29% to 48% in this BEV market. The Volkswagen Group thus places eight models in the Top 10 (compared to five the previous year) and eleven models in the Top 25 (compared to seven the previous year). The ID7, now the leader of the German BEV market, is enjoying unexpected success, given its high-end positioning.
- Other carmakers benefited less from this recovery, their market share often remaining stable, except for Ford, which increased from 1% in 2024 to 2% in 2025. The carmakers that benefited least from the recovery were Mercedes, with a market share falling from 15% in 2024 to 7% in 2025, and Tesla, with a market share falling from 13% in 2024 to 4% in 2025. According to these figures, it would seem that a large part of the customer base has moved from Mercedes and Tesla to Volkswagen.
Nissan to close seven assembly plants worldwide
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Nissan to close seven assembly plants worldwide
- The Japanese carmaker Nissan, which is facing enormous economic and financial problems (it announced losses of four billion euros for the last financial year ending March 2025), will close 7 assembly plants out of the 17 it currently has around the world.
- These 17 assembly plants (+4 plants belonging to Renault), which enabled it to produce more than three million vehicles (passenger cars and light utility vehicles) in 2024, are spread across the planet, but 12 assembly plants spread across five countries represent 90% of Nissan's global production: Japan (801,365 vehicles produced in 4 plants in 2024), China (598,527 vehicles produced in 3 plants in 2024), Mexico (542,414 vehicles produced in 2 plants in 2024), the United States (529,373 vehicles produced in 2 plants in 2024) and Europe (282,124 vehicles produced in 1 plant in 2024).
- Nissan has not yet announced which seven factories will be closed, but we can already see that:
• 70% of the factories (12 out of 17) produce 90% of Nissan's global production.
• 30% of factories (5 out of 17) produce only 10% of Nissan's global production.
• The remaining 7% of Nissan's global production is carried out in four Renault factories.
- The most logical solution would be to close the least productive factories, namely the five factories that account for only 3% of Nissan's global production, and to close two other factories in markets where Nissan has lost a lot of influence, such as China and Japan.
- In its Auto-Analysis of December 3, 2024, Inovev analyzed that the 20% reduction in production capacity (resulting in the elimination of 9,000 jobs) announced by Nissan at the time would not be sufficient, given the carmaker's situation, and that it was more realistic to reduce it by 40%. Nissan's new announcement to close 7 factories and eliminate 20,000 jobs is consistent with this.
Inovev forecasts 100,000 units per year of the new Fiat 500 MHEV
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Inovev forecasts 100,000 units per year of the new Fiat 500 MHEV
- The Stellantis group has presented the new Fiat 500 Hybrid (actually an MHEV), production of which has just started at the Italian site of Mirafiori, near Turin, alongside the battery electric Fiat 500 marketed since September 2020. The model, which is based on the STLA City platform and the body of the battery electric Fiat 500 and not on the pure thermal Fiat 500 marketed from 2007 to 2024 (length = 3.63 m compared to 3.57 m for the Fiat 500 petrol), is equipped with a 1.0 micro-hybrid petrol engine (48V - MHEV).
- The Fiat 500 petrol was discontinued in 2024 due to the obsolescence of its technical base and the inability to comply with the new European GSR2 (General Safety Regulation 2).
- But the battery electric Fiat 500, launched in 2020 and developed on a new basis, has not managed to win back all of the customers of the old Fiat 500 petrol, mainly due to a question of price (an electric Fiat 500 was worth 30,400 to 33,900 euros in 2024 while a Fiat 500 petrol did not exceed 18,700 euros).
- This is why cumulative sales of the Fiat 500 petrol and electric models fell from 191,000 units in 2023 to 102,000 units in 2024, including 68,000 Fiat 500 pure thermal models (2/3 of sales) and 34,000 Fiat 500 battery electric models (1/3 of sales). This sales drop of the Fiat 500 resulted of an overall sales decline for the Fiat brand in Europe last year. The launch of a Fiat 500 hybrid (a technology that has been a huge commercial success in Europe) is therefore crucial. It was also highly anticipated.
- Fiat announces a target of 100,000 sales per year, a figure corroborated by Inovev in its 2025 edition of the Enginevev document published in May 2025.
Stellantis sees its production drop sharply in Italy
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Stellantis sees its production drop sharply in Italy
- The Stellantis group has reduced its workforce by 15,000 people in Italy over the past four years. The explanation for these job cuts is that, on the one hand, Fiat and its satellite brands Alfa-Romeo and Lancia have lost a lot of influence on the Italian market over the past fifteen years (falling from 30% of the Italian market in 2010 to 26% in 2015, 21% in 2020 and 13% in 2024) and, on the other hand, Fiat has relocated a lot over the past fifteen years: Fiat 500, Fiat 600, Alfa Junior, Lancia Ypsilon to Poland (Tichy site), Fiat Tipo to Turkey (Bursa site), Fiat Grande Panda to Serbia (Kragujevac).
- Finally, the relative success of the electric Fiat 500 made in Italy did not meet the carmaker's objectives. Similarly, the new generation of Alfa-Romeo made in Italy (Stelvio, Giulia, Tonale) did not achieve the expected success. It can be added that the Jeeps made in Italy were a success, but their distribution quickly declined and today the Renegade and Compass are at the end of their life. The Fiat 500X based on the Renegade and made in Italy was replaced by the Fiat 600 produced in Poland. We are not even talking about the Maseratis made in Italy, which have seen a collapse in their distribution.
- As for light utility vehicles, some have been relocated in recent years to Poland (Gliwice site).
- In short, the production volume of the Stellantis group in Italy is currently at its lowest, with 517,000 vehicles (passenger cars + light utility vehicles) produced in 2024, compared to 980,000 in 2017 and 1,145,000 in 2007. The first quarter of 2025 shows no improvement, since Stellantis' production volume has fallen further, to 110,000 vehicles, representing an annual rate of 400,000 vehicles taking into account the summer holidays.
Mercedes has decided to shift part of GLC production to the United States
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Mercedes has decided to shift part of GLC production to the United States
- In response to the threat of US tariffs on European car imports, Mercedes announced that it was considering producing an additional model at its US plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This plant currently produces the Mercedes GLE (E-segment), EQE (E-segment), GLS (F-segment), and EQS (F-segment) SUVs for the world, as well as the Sprinter pickup truck for the US market. The Tuscaloosa plant produced 335,515 vehicles in 2024, with a production capacity of 350,000 units per year.
- Inovev's analysis showed that the most logical solution was to produce the Mercedes GLC SUV at this plant, in addition to the five models mentioned above, because the Mercedes GLC (D-segment SUV) is the brand's most imported vehicle from Europe to the United States: 64,163 units in 2024 out of a total of 201,194 imported Mercedes vehicles.
- The German automaker has just announced that the additional model to be produced at the Tuscaloosa site will indeed be the GLC SUV for North American markets. To achieve this, the plant will need to increase its production capacity from 350,000 to 400,000 units per year, making it one of Mercedes' largest factories. Production of the GLC in the USA is expected to begin in 2027.
- The consequence of this transfer is that the Bremen site, the original production location of the Mercedes GLC, will lose between 60,000 and 65,000 vehicles per year, which will have an impact on vehicle production volumes in Germany and Europe. It should be noted that the GLC is also produced in China, but this version is not exported to the United States.
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