Leapmotor Outsold Tesla in Germany in October and Is Closing In on BYD

Leapmotor registered 3,661 new cars in Germany in October 2026, according to figures published on 4 November by the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA), Germany’s federal vehicle registration authority. That’s 729 more than Tesla and 71% of BYD’s 5,173, in a month when the German car market as a whole grew by just 1.7% to 254,492 registrations.

A year earlier, the gap to BYD was far wider. Working back from KBA’s growth rates, Leapmotor registered roughly 940 cars in October 2025, about a quarter of BYD’s total at the time.

All four brands had a favourable backdrop. Battery-electric cars made up 37.0% of German registrations in October, with 94,086 cars and growth of 79.5% year on year. Private buyers registered 20.6% more cars than a year earlier, while company registrations fell by 8.2%.

How the Chinese Brands and Tesla Compared in October

Source: KBA, Pressemitteilung Nr. 44/2026, 4 November 2026. New passenger car registrations by brand, all powertrains. KBA lists MG as “MG Roewe”.

Leapmotor, Tesla and Xpeng all grew by between 284% and 291%, so the percentages alone don’t separate them. In absolute numbers, Leapmotor added the most. By my calculation from KBA’s growth rates, it registered about 2,700 more cars than in October 2025, while Tesla added about 2,200 and BYD about 1,800. Tesla nearly quadrupled its October figure and still finished behind Leapmotor, which isn’t a sentence I expected to write two years ago.

Xpeng’s 1,380 looks small next to the others. It’s still two and a half times the 549 cars that made March the brand’s best month in Germany at the time.

BYD and Tesla Are Almost Level After Ten Months

Over the first ten months of 2026, BYD registered 47,961 cars in Germany and Tesla 47,742, a difference of just 219. Both brands have roughly tripled their totals from the same period last year.

Leapmotor sits further back on 19,705, which is 41% of BYD’s ten-month figure. Its pace has picked up sharply in the second half of the year, though. In the first half, Leapmotor registered 8,402 cars, as I covered when it topped the Chinese brands for pure electric registrations in June. It has added 11,303 in the four months since, an average of about 2,800 a month against roughly 1,400 between January and June.

MG is the brand directly ahead. It registered 4,140 cars in October, up 48.5%, which leaves Leapmotor 479 registrations short.

Why Leapmotor Is Growing So Fast in Germany

My view is that Leapmotor’s growth comes down to price and to who sells the cars. Leapmotor’s European sales run through Leapmotor International, a joint venture in which Stellantis holds 51%. German buyers deal with an established dealer and service network. That takes away one of the usual worries about buying from a new Chinese brand. When the June figures came out, Leapmotor Germany’s head Martin Resch credited the brand’s focus on private customers and its dealer network.

Pricing points the same way. The B03X starts at €24,900 in Germany, which puts it below most rivals in its segment. With private registrations up 20.6% in October, Leapmotor is selling to the part of the German market that’s growing.

Local production should help from here. Leapmotor has started building cars at Stellantis’ plant in Spain, and cars built in the EU don’t pay the extra tariffs the EU puts on Chinese-built EVs. KBA’s figures don’t show how many of October’s registrations came from Spain and how many from China.

What These Figures Don’t Show

There’s a fair case for not reading too much into the growth rates. Tesla had a weak 2025, as I wrote when the full-year delivery figures came out. Working back from KBA’s growth rates, Tesla registered only about 15,600 cars in Germany between January and October 2025 and roughly 750 in October, so this year’s growth starts from a very low base. Leapmotor was starting from a small base as well, which makes a near fourfold increase easier to reach.

KBA’s brand table also counts every new car a brand registers, whatever powers it. Tesla only sells battery-electric cars, but the BYD and Leapmotor figures aren’t pure EV numbers. I wouldn’t describe October as Leapmotor reaching 71% of BYD’s electric sales until KBA publishes its model-by-model figures, which split registrations by powertrain. I’ll update this article when they’re out.

Featured Image: Leapmotor