During December 2025, Ukrainians and local enterprises purchased 11.1 thousand new passenger cars. In annual comparison with December 2024, we have an increase in volumes of 113.1%, when comparing this yearʼs December to November, we get an increase of 43.3%. Such a noticeable jump was caused by a wave of purchases of electric cars — in order to make it to the end of 2025 and not buy the same thing, but with VAT, which increases the price of a car by at least 20%.
The majority of new passenger cars, as usual (98%, 10,845 units), were imported from abroad. The share of passenger cars manufactured in Ukraine was 2% (223 units).
During 2025, 79,501 new passenger cars were registered for the first time. This is 15.6% more than the number of first registrations in 2024.
Of this number, 77,674 cars were imported, and 1,827 had VIN codes from Ukrainian enterprises that carried out partial assembly or conversion of new passenger cars.
According to the results of 2025, the leader among manufacturers of new cars on the Ukrainian car market was the Chinese BYD. And here it is not worth mentioning the electric car hype, because this brand confidently increased volumes throughout the year, and was in the lead for more than one month in a row. The arithmetic difference from Toyota is small, literally two hundred cars. However, it is of great importance that it still took first place, without an official representative office, service centers, guaranteed availability of spare parts, service and software support specifically for Ukraine.
Ostap Novytsky, an analyst at the Institute for Automotive Market Research, comments: “This is a clear signal from buyers that they view cars more as gadgets, and certainly not for life. They are ready to take a risk and use a car where hieroglyphs are sometimes found in the on-screen menu, and the nearest electrician who knows at least a little about this brand is only in a neighboring region. The concept of reliability, which is in first place in Toyota, is not so important to them — the car will definitely last for several years, no worse than a Chinese smartphone, washing machine or laptop. And the price is half as much. No “official” signs or flags of showrooms of local dealers who have direct agreements with importers and factories can resist this.
At the same time, it is too early to draw a line and unequivocally state that “the Chinese have captured our market”: there is still a “secondary market” where the final verdict will be made: is there a place for the “Chinese” in Ukraine (or even Europe) or not. This will determine liquidity. You will definitely be able to sell your Toyota in a few years at a price that will differ from the forecast by only a few percent. As for Chinese products, no one can answer in the affirmative at the moment, because it takes time to understand this. So in 4-7 years, depending on how quickly (or slowly) the prices for the same BYD or Zeekr, which also made it into the Top 10, will decrease, we will be able to say whether the players of cars with the Made in China sticker are equal, or whether we have simply witnessed a wave of interest in something new that quickly lost its resource.
In the model ranking of purely Chinese products are BYD Song Plus and Zeekr 7X. Also Volkswagen ID.Unyx. At the top of the table are the familiar leaders of past years Renault Duster and Toyota RAV4. Despite the rather wide model range of the aforementioned BYD, the ranking of individual models is dominated by European, Japanese, and Korean variants.
As for premium brands, over the past year, our fleet has been replenished with 2 Lamborghinis, 8 Aston Martins, 20 Bentleys, 26 Rolls-Royces, 32 Maseratis, and 793 Porsches.
Among new passenger cars that were registered as manufactured in Ukraine (quantitatively included in the overall rating), the leader last year was the Skoda Karoq crossover (938 units), which is produced at the Transcarpathian Eurocar plant.
- We will publish a picture of fuel priorities in the new passenger car segment soon, with infographics and comments. And in order not to miss the release of this review, subscribe to the Telegram channel of the Institute for Automotive Market Research to receive information first, without advertising and spam.
