How much more do EU-assembled electric cars cost?

Cars included

The production overview covers the 56 best-selling battery-electric model series in Germany from January to August 2026. The summary chart includes those built in the EU for which a sufficiently similar car built outside the EU could be found; the model-by-model comparison includes those with a sufficiently similar China-built car.

KBA is Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority. Its registration totals cover model series, which can combine retail models such as VW ID.4 and ID.5. For mixed series, the origin of a priced variant is checked separately.

Prices and matching

Prices are German list prices, including VAT, for one specific orderable variant. Price, usable battery capacity, power, range and length all come from that same variant.

Cars must be in the same or an adjacent KBA segment, have usable battery capacity within ±15%, and be within 300 mm and 7% in length. Only pairs within these limits are compared.

Among those, the closest match is chosen in three steps. A car in the same KBA segment is preferred to one in an adjacent segment, and a car with the same type of drive (two- or four-wheel) to one with a different type. The remaining cars are ranked by how much they differ in length, WLTP range, motor power and usable battery capacity. Each difference, in per cent, is divided by a reference step: 5% for length, 15% for range, 20% for power and 15% for battery capacity. The results are squared and added, so one large difference counts more than several small ones. The car with the lowest total is the closest match. Price never enters the matching.

The European Commission compared cars by length, WLTP range, motor power and type of drive in its anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric cars. Usable battery capacity is added because the battery is the largest single cost item.

The South Korea- and Japan-built pools include every model series assembled there with at least 80 German BEV registrations in January–August 2026 that could be the closest match for an EU-assembled car, except vans and rebadged twins of a model already in the pool (Subaru Solterra and Uncharted). Premium brands, including Lexus and Genesis, are included by default and left out in the premium-excluded view.

The combined comparison pairs each subject with the most similar of its matches built outside the EU: in China, South Korea, Japan or another country (India, Mexico, Serbia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States or Vietnam), ranked by the same segment, drive, length, range, power and battery criteria. Price never decides the match. Exact ties go to China, then South Korea, Japan and the other countries. Cars built outside the EU, China, South Korea and Japan with at least 80 German BEV registrations in January–August 2026 enter only the combined comparison: the Suzuki e Vitara (India), the Toyota Urban Cruiser (India), the Ford Mustang Mach-E (Mexico), the Fiat Grande Panda (Serbia), the Togg T10X (Turkey), the Nissan Leaf (United Kingdom), the Lucid Gravity (United States) and the VinFast VF 6 (Vietnam). Serbia, Turkey and the United Kingdom count as outside the EU because they are not member states.

Models whose German supply comes from more than one region are left out, both as EU-assembled cars and as comparators, when the plant of the priced car is unclear: the Volvo EX30 (Belgium and China), XPENG G6 and G9 (Austria and China), Leapmotor B10 (Spain and China), BYD Dolphin (Thailand and China), Polestar 3 and Volvo EX90 (United States and China) and Polestar 4 (South Korea and China).

Vans are left out on both sides: the VW ID. Buzz as an EU-assembled car and the XPENG X9 as a comparator.

Illustrative duty adjustment

For the alternative view, each China-built model's German sticker price is divided by one plus the additional EU countervailing-duty rate applying to its producer: 1.078 for Tesla Shanghai, 1.17 for BYD, 1.188 for Geely, 1.207 for listed cooperating producers and 1.353 for SAIC. Because the duty is charged on customs value rather than the sticker price, the result is not an estimate of the retail price without the duty.

CUPRA Tavascan is excluded from the comparator pool. Qualifying Volkswagen Anhui imports are covered by a confidential minimum-import-price undertaking rather than a public percentage duty, so the same calculation cannot be applied consistently.

What origin evidence can show

Final vehicle assembly, battery-pack assembly and cell-production location are recorded separately. Public sources often identify one of these stages but not the others.

Battery sourcing can differ by variant, model year, factory or production batch. Where a source covers only a model family, it is not treated as proof for every car within the KBA series.

The production evidence is descriptive. The legal component conditions are set out above.

How to read the result

The price comparison describes the German market in October 2026. It does not isolate a causal IAA compliance cost. Equipment, warranty, brand and other differences can remain after matching.

The optional “premium brands excluded” view leaves out cars of premium brands on both sides: Audi, BMW, Genesis, Lexus, Lucid, Lynk & Co, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Polestar, Porsche, smart, VinFast, Volvo and Zeekr. Premium brands usually charge more for similar specifications, so in pairings that involve them the gap mixes brand positioning with production location. The remaining EU-assembled cars are matched again against mainstream brands only. A brand counts as premium when it, or its group, describes it as a premium or luxury brand; the classification is by brand, not by model or price.

Under the proposal's 85% rule, a vehicle manufacturer can have all its electric and plug-in hybrid cars treated as compliant for twelve months if compliant EU-assembled cars made up at least 85% of its EU registrations of such cars in the previous year. This rule is not reflected in the comparison, which classifies each car by where it is built, not by brand or manufacturer. Counting the China-built CUPRA Tavascan and MINI Cooper SE as EU-made would change the medians by about one percentage point.

Use of AI

AI tools were used to help collect and process the data on this site.