Germany's EV Grant Has Approved 52,473 Cars, and Tesla Is Second

Germany's electric car grant has now approved 52,473 vehicles, and the second-biggest beneficiary is Tesla.

That is worth stating plainly, because TeslAnt reported close to the opposite four weeks ago. In EY's warning about subsidy-driven pseudo-growth we wrote that Tesla was capturing very little of the subsidy-driven volume. It was a reasonable read in early August, when the company had just posted 367 German registrations for July. The figures the Bundesamt für Wirtschaft und Ausfuhrkontrolle has since published say otherwise.

Where the approvals have gone

As of 1 September 2026:

Approvals nearly doubled in a month. Some 25,598 were added between 1 August and 1 September, a rise of about 95%. Around 230 million euros has been committed against a 3 billion euro envelope that runs to 2029, which Environment Minister Carsten Schneider expects to cover roughly 800,000 cars in total.

Tesla grew more slowly than the scheme as a whole: from 4,590 approvals on 1 August to 8,141 a month later, up 77% against the programme's 95%. It held second place while losing a little ground on it.

The Grünheide Model Y leads every model

At the 1 August cut, the single most-subsidised car in Germany was the Model Y built at Grünheide. Tesla's next entry, the Model 3 on 1,517 approvals, is supplied from Fremont and Shanghai.

That split matters because of what Berlin is weighing next. As covered in the proposal to tie the grant to European production, the governing parties want local-content conditions attached to the premium. On the current data Tesla would sit on both sides of that line: its best-selling subsidised car is made in Brandenburg, its second is not.

The China worry is not showing up in the data

Of the ten most-subsidised models, 61% of approvals went to cars from European plants and 39% to cars built elsewhere. BYD, the brand named most often in that debate, was seventh on 1,338 approvals at the 1 August count, behind Hyundai Motor Group on 2,973 and Renault Group on 1,659.

What it means for buyers in Europe's biggest EV market

Two practical things. The grant is income-targeted, and most approvals have gone to households earning up to 45,000 euros a year, with awards between 1,500 and 6,000 euros depending on model, household size and income. The headline maximum is not the typical outcome, and the absence of a price cap does not change that.

The money is also finite. Only 230 million euros of 3 billion has been committed, but the burn rate doubled in a single month, and the programme's own history is that registrations fall when the funding stops.

The bird-in-hand argument from August therefore still holds, and it now applies to Tesla buyers too. What has changed is Tesla's exposure to the end of it. In August we judged the company had little to lose when the money runs out, because it was winning little from it. With 8,141 grant-backed cars and an August in which Tesla more than doubled its German registrations, that is no longer true.