In 2023, only 1.3 % of German households with a monthly net household income below €2,600 owned at least one electric car or plug‑in hybrid. The percentage rose to 3.5 % for incomes between €2,600 and €3,600 and to 5.4 % for incomes between €3,600 and €5,000. For households earning €5,000 or more per month, 13.4 % owned one or more of these vehicles. Altogether, 6.0 % of private households owned at least one EV or plug‑in hybrid that year. In contrast, 80 % of all German households owned a passenger car of any type.
Households with children were more likely to have such vehicles. Eleven point five percent of couple households with children below 18 years had at least one EV or plug‑in hybrid, compared with 7.5 % of couple households without children. The likelihood varied with the number of children: 10.6 % for couples with one child, 12.6 % for two children, and 10.7 % for three or more children. In single‑person households, only 2.2 % owned an EV or plug‑in hybrid.
Among households that owned at least one EV or plug‑in hybrid, vehicle purchase type was roughly split. Forty‑eight point five percent had at least one newly bought vehicle, 45.2 % had at least one leased vehicle, and 15.2 % owned a used vehicle of this type.
New car registrations show a clear shift toward electrification. In 2025, 30.0 % of all newly registered passenger cars in Germany were electric-whether pure battery electric or plug‑in hybrids. That figure had been 20.3 % in 2024. In 2025, about 856,500 electric cars were registered, including roughly 545,100 battery‑electric vehicles (BEVs). BEVs represented 19.1 % of all new registrations in 2025, up from 13.5 % in 2024.
To support widespread electric driving, a nationwide charging network is essential. As of 1 January 2025, Germany had approximately 160,000 public charging points, of which around 36,000 were fast chargers. The distribution is uneven: Bavaria and Baden‑Württemberg, as well as counties along the North Sea coast, have a relatively high density of stations, while the eastern states-particularly Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern, Saxony‑Anhalt, Saxony, and Thuringia-have comparatively few. On average, the nearest public charging point is a seven‑minute drive away nationwide. In metropolitan areas this distance can be as little as 2-5 minutes, whereas in sparsely populated regions it can extend to up to 30 minutes.