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He said that government subsidy programs had boosted take up of electric vehicles and that Germany may end up beating its longer-term target of 7-10 million EVs on its roads. Europe became the world’s largest market for EVs in 2020 as governments pushed initiatives to increase adoption, with fines for automobile makers who don’t reach strict emissions targets and incentives for car buyers. Read: This new ‘Tesla fight’ from Mercedes beats out Model S on two key measures, UBS says Germany leads the way in the region so far this year, with 248,000 electric vehicle registrations from January to May, followed by France and the U.K., according to data from automotive analyst Matthias Schmidt. German car manufacturers Daimler DAI, +0.32% and Volkswagen VOW, +0.43% are among those who have aggressively ramped up EV production plans in recent years, in a bid to capitalize on the demand and compete with Tesla TSLA, +0.14%, which has lost its crown as the market leader in Europe. Read: Electric-car sales jump to record 54% market share in Norway but Tesla loses top spot Elon Musk’s company ceded market share last year, falling from 31% in 2019 to 13.2% in 2020, according to Schmidt, as competition intensified. That trend continued in the early part of 2021, Schmidt said, with Volkswagen accounting for more than 25% of European battery-electric-vehicle market share, followed by Stellantis STLA, -0.02% — 16.8% — and the Renault-Nissan RNO, -0.28% alliance with 12.3%, while Tesla had 11.5%.
