China’s giant automaker BYD announced on Tuesday that it was the best-selling brand in Spain across both fully electric and hybrid models.
The company offers both battery electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid models (PHEV) in the Southern European country, which was the debut market of the hybrid Atto 2 late last year.
With 1,962 vehicles registered in Spain last month, a 64.6% increase from a year ago, the brand achieved a 13.6% market share.
When it comes to fully electric vehicles, sales jumped 29.7% year over year to 1,039 units, representing most of the brand’s registrations in January.
BYD led electric vehicle sales last month, followed by South Korea’s Kia and Germany’s Mercedes-Benz.
Tesla ranked fourth with 458 fully electric vehicles sold.
BEV registrations jumped above PHEVs for the first time last June and reached a record 2,143 units in December.
According to data from the platform EU-EVs, BYD has sold 15,857 fully electric vehicles in Spain last year, a fivefold surge from 2024, when 3,801 BEVs had been registered.
The company placed just 200 units below Tesla, the best-selling EV maker in the country last year.
The total vehicles sold across both powertrains reached 27,518 vehicles.
BYD in Spain
BYD expanded its passenger vehicle lineup to the Iberian Peninsula — including both Spain and Portugal — in early 2023.
It features eight fully electric models and four hybrid ones in the Spanish market, most of them being SUVs.
The Dolphin Surf, which launched in mid-2025, is the cheapest model in the lineup, starting from €11,780 excluding the Value Added Tax (VAT), which pushes the price above €20,000.
According to BYD, the fully electric Dolphin Surf, Dolphin, and Seal U SUV each ranked first in their respective segments last month.
The same performance was also achieved by the Seal U and Seal 6 plug-in (DM-i) variants.
The Seal U DM-i was the best-selling model across its lineup, accounting for 679 units of the total 1,962 vehicles sold.
Data from EU-EVs shows that the Dolphin Surf was BYD’s best-selling electric model, representing 289 out of the total 1,039 EVs, followed by the fully electric version of the Atto 2 SUV.
The company officially launched the hybrid version of its Atto 2 model in Europe last November, nearly ten months after the local debut of the fully electric version.
The Atto 2 DM-i debuted in Spain, where it will be priced from €18,190 ($21,000) — about €2,000 above the battery electric (BEV) version, which starts at €15,990.
Upcoming Factory
Manufacturing fully electric vehicles in Europe will allow the automaker to avoid the European Commission tariffs imposed in October 2024 on imported EVs.
Late last month, BYD began trial production in its first European plant in Hungary, following delays in completing construction of the passenger vehicle factory.
In October, Reuters reported that BYD was considering Spain for its third European factory, after Turkey and Hungary.
According to sources familiar with the matter, Spain was favoured due to its relatively low manufacturing costs and clean energy network.
A BYD Portugal executive revealed that Spain’s neighbor was also under consideration.
“There are contacts done directly by BYD in Portugal due to the advantageous conditions of the country,” Pedro Cordeiro stated, citing the lithium factory in Sines being constructed by the Chinese battery maker CALB.
