Germany’s electric vehicle boom is built on a foundation of corporate accounting tricks, not genuine consumer demand.

A German industry association warned Monday that nearly one in four newly registered EVs in 2025 were “self-registered” by manufacturers and dealers rather than sold to actual customers. The revelation exposes a troubling gap between official registration statistics and real-world market dynamics.

The implications extend far beyond German borders. If Europe’s largest automotive market is gaming its own numbers to meet regulatory targets, what does that say about the broader EV transition narrative?

Self-Registrations Surge 51% as Real Demand Stalls

The Central Association of the German Motor Vehicle Trade (ZDK) dropped a statistical bombshell that should concern every automaker and policymaker tracking EV adoption.

In October alone, nearly 25% of newly registered cars were self-registered by manufacturers or dealers, ZDK President Thomas Peckruhn revealed. He called this a “clear warning sign” about the state of Germany’s EV market.

“The market’s growth is not currently driven by genuine customer demand, but is primarily being sustained by artificial stimuli from manufacturers and dealers,” Peckruhn said in a statement.

The numbers paint a stark picture. Self-registrations in the BEV segment jumped 51% in the first ten months of 2025. Two years ago, only one in six EVs fell into this category. Now it’s one in four.

Meanwhile, private BEV registrations actually fell 9% to 82,294 vehicles in the first half of 2025. Manufacturer self-registrations alone quadrupled over the same two-year period, reaching 65,401 vehicles.

Why Automakers Are Buying Their Own Cars

The answer lies in Brussels.

European Union CO2 fleet emission targets require automakers to hit increasingly strict averages across their entire vehicle lineup. Miss the targets, and manufacturers face billions in potential fines.

Self-registrations allow companies to inflate their EV sales numbers on paper, helping them approach compliance without actually convincing consumers to buy electric vehicles. These cars are then quietly resold as “young used vehicles” at significant discounts.

It’s regulatory arbitrage dressed up as market success.

Official data from Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) showed BEV registrations increased by around 39% year-over-year in the first 10 months of 2025, accounting for approximately 18% of all new car registrations. Those headline numbers looked like progress.

The ZDK data reveals they were largely fiction.

EV Residual Values Collapse Under Self-Registration Flood

The self-registration shell game is already crushing EV resale values.

According to market analyst DAT, the average residual value for a three-year-old EV with standard mileage dropped to 48.8% in October. Two years ago, that figure stood at 58.1%.

For comparison, gasoline vehicles retain 63% of their value over the same period. Diesel sits at 61.3%.

The math is brutal. When manufacturers flood the market with self-registered vehicles that quickly become discounted “young used cars,” they undercut the entire used EV market. Lower residual values translate directly into higher leasing costs for new EVs, creating a vicious cycle that further suppresses genuine consumer demand.

Industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhoffer’s discount analyses show a marked increase in EV discount levels throughout 2025. The combination of weak organic demand and self-registration dumping has created a buyer’s market that automakers are desperately trying to hide.

German Automakers Lobby to Kill Rules They’re Gaming

Here’s where the story gets absurd.

The same German automakers artificially inflating their EV numbers are simultaneously lobbying Brussels to weaken the 2035 combustion engine phase-out they claim makes selling EVs impossible.

Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are pushing the European Commission to soften interim fleet emission targets and allow certain plug-in hybrids to continue sales after 2035. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) recently declared that 2030 and 2035 targets are “no longer achievable.”

Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius warned that European automakers are “heading at full speed against a wall” if regulations aren’t reconsidered.

BMW CEO Oliver Zipse called the 2035 ban “a big mistake” and pushed for “technological neutrality” that would allow combustion engines to continue alongside EVs.

The VDA, Germany’s automotive industry lobby, argued in a draft paper that “the end of the combustion engine cannot be realised in this way” given current market conditions.

Those market conditions they’re complaining about? Largely created by their own failure to build EVs consumers actually want to buy at prices they can afford.

EVXL’s Take

Germany’s self-registration scandal is the European cousin of America’s subsidy-dependent EV market collapse.

As we reported just days ago in our coverage of the U.S. Q3 clean energy investment surge, record investment numbers can mask catastrophic structural retreat. The same dynamic is playing out in Germany, where official registration growth conceals genuine demand collapse.

The parallel to America’s post-subsidy reality is unmistakable. When the $7,500 federal tax credit expired on September 30, U.S. EV sales cratered 24% in a single month. Germany’s subsidy structure differs, but the underlying problem is identical: markets built on policy mandates rather than consumer preference eventually reveal their artificial foundations.

What makes Germany’s situation particularly damning is the hypocrisy. These are the same automakers who initially backed the 2035 combustion engine ban as “ambitious but achievable” in 2022. Volkswagen called the EV transition “irreversible.” Mercedes pledged to go “fully electric by the end of the decade.”

Three years later, they’re gaming the regulations while lobbying to gut them.

We’ve been tracking Germany’s EV struggles since early 2024, when we reported on the country’s 15 million EV target hitting roadblocks following the abrupt end of purchase subsidies. The ZDK warned then about market saturation at the premium end and lack of affordable options below. Nothing has changed except the creative accounting.

The residual value collapse is particularly telling. When EVs retain barely half their value after three years while gasoline cars hold nearly two-thirds, that’s not a policy problem. That’s a product problem. German automakers spent years developing expensive EVs for premium buyers while Chinese competitors like BYD built affordable options with competitive specs.

Now BYD is exploding across European markets while German manufacturers register cars to themselves to avoid regulatory penalties.

The ZDK’s data should be a wake-up call for European policymakers. Registration statistics that include manufacturer self-registrations don’t measure market adoption. They measure regulatory compliance strategies. Until those numbers are separated, any claims about EV transition progress in Germany should be treated with extreme skepticism.

For consumers, the silver lining is obvious: if you’re shopping for a used EV in Germany, you’re about to have plenty of options at steep discounts. Just don’t mistake those discounts for genuine market health.

The EV revolution doesn’t need creative accounting. It needs vehicles that compete on price, range, and features without regulatory crutches. Germany’s self-registration scandal proves Europe’s largest automotive market still hasn’t figured that out.