Tesla had the two best-selling cars in Europe in September 2026. Preliminary Dataforce figures, reported by Automotive News Europe, put the Model Y first and the Model 3 second in the European model ranking, with Tesla's registrations up 71% on September 2025. The Model 3 more than doubled, to 25,057 registrations (+106%), and the Model Y rose 55%.
Autoweek adds a measure of the scale: the Model Y alone outsold Ford's entire range in Europe last month.
The month in numbers
Dataforce counts the EU, the UK, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. Europe's new-car market grew 10% in September, and battery-electric registrations grew by 60%.
| September 2026 | Change on September 2025 |
|---|---|
| All new cars | +10% |
| Battery-electric | +60%, a record 30% share |
| Plug-in hybrid | +25% |
| Full hybrid | +9.3% |
| Petrol | −10% |
| Diesel | −19% |
| Tesla | +71% |
| Chinese brands | +104%, a record 14.5% share |
Over the first nine months the market is up 6.1% and battery-electric registrations are up 42%. Il Fatto Quotidiano, which carried the Dataforce figures, credits purchase incentives in France, Germany and Italy, higher fuel prices and the arrival of cheaper models.
How the two Teslas got there
September closes the quarter, when Tesla pushes deliveries hardest, and the national data published at the start of October already pointed this way.
| Market | Tesla in September 2026 |
|---|---|
| Germany | Model Y 8,038, best-selling new car of any drivetrain |
| France | Model Y 8,183, best-selling new car |
| UK | Model 3 9,929, best-selling EV and second overall |
| Spain | Model 3 2,528, the first EV to lead Spain's market in a month |
| Norway | Model Y 4,810, 25.7% of the market |
Neither Automotive News Europe nor Il Fatto gives the Model Y's European total. Dataforce counted 25,938 Model Ys in September 2025, so a 55% rise would put it at roughly 40,000. That is TeslAnt's arithmetic, not a published figure.
Chinese brands are growing faster still
Chinese brands doubled their volume and took 14.5% of the market, against an average of 10.5% over the first nine months and 11.7% in August. Leapmotor, which sells through Stellantis, grew 324% to 14,382 registrations. Chery rose 263%, XPeng 229%, the Geely group 151% and BYD 102%. SAIC, which owns MG, grew 21%.
The established makers mostly stood still. Stellantis rose 5.1%, Mercedes-Benz 4% and Toyota 1.1%. The Volkswagen Group fell 2.8%, Renault 0.8%, Hyundai-Kia 2.7%, Nissan 14% and Ford 18%.
What to read into it
For a European buyer, the month shows Tesla's two-car range setting the pace of the electric market again, three months after a July in which the Model Y dropped out of Europe's electric top ten. It also shows the quarterly pattern: Tesla's figures are strongest in the last month of each quarter, so October will be the cleaner test.
There are two caveats. The figures are preliminary, and the ranking comes from press reports rather than Dataforce's own table. And every Model 3 sold in Europe is built in Shanghai, while the Model Y comes from Grünheide. That distinction matters if France and Germany's Made in Europe conditions end up attached to purchase incentives.
Tesla reports its third-quarter results on 21 October.