India’s passenger vehicle registrations accelerated 30.9 per cent year-on-year to over 4.14 lakh in September 2026 from over 3.16 lakh in September 2025, while electric cars grew thrice as fast, nearly doubling to 34,894 units, according to Vahan data.
Sequentially, overall PV registrations rose 2.1 per cent from 4.05 lakh units in August, while EV registrations increased by a much stronger 9.9 per cent.
The EV surge has also reshuffled the race among carmakers. Tata Motors nearly doubled its EV registrations to 14,721 while Mahindra & Mahindra’s rose 94.9 per cent to 7,743 and overtook JSW MG, whose registrations increased 8.9 per cent to 5,226 units
In the overall PV market, Maruti Suzuki maintained its top spot with over 1.68 lakh registrations during the month. The race behind it tightened sharply with Tata registering 56,972 vehicles against M&M’s 56,745, leaving just a 227 unit gap between them. Last September, the gulf was wider at 3,011 units.
Beyond the top three, Hyundai remained the fourth-largest player, with registrations rising 31 per cent year-on-year to 49,998 units.
Another contest tightened further down the table. Toyota grew 21.3 per cent to 27,652 units, while Kia jumped 45.4 per cent to 26,555 units. Toyota’s lead over Kia consequently shrank from 4,541 vehicles in September 2025 to 1,097 in September 2026.
The acceleration indicates PV demand is gaining momentum, helped by the festival season, improved consumer sentiment, and manufacturers bringing new models and offers to the market, said Kranti Bathini, Director-Equity Strategy at WealthMills Securities.
The January-September Vahan numbers show a bigger change in the pecking order. Tata’s registrations rose 36.8 per cent to 5.53 lakh units while M&M’s rose 23.7 per cent to 5.31 lakh. During the same period last year, Tata was trailing M&M by nearly 25,000 vehicles.
It was a dog-fight in the EV category. Tata’s registrations rose 89.3 per cent to 1,01,862 units during the period from 53,820 a year earlier. Mahindra’s, meanwhile, jumped 128.8 per cent to 57,943, while MG’s registrations increased 13 per cent to 48,793.
In other words, Mahindra swung from 17,868 EVs behind MG in the same period last year to 9,150 ahead this year.
The stronger registration numbers suggest that the demand is translating into retail rather than being driven only by manufacturer dispatches, said Vinkesh Gulati, Chairman of the Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) and former President of the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA). Faster EV growth also indicates that electric cars are becoming a more meaningful part of the PV market as more products become available, he added.
In monthly registrations, Kia’s EV count went up 47.6 per cent to 1,255 in September while Maruti’s fell 25.6 per cent to 1,095. VinFast remained ahead of both the companies with 2,961 registrations, up 32.2 per cent m-o-m.
Domestic wholesale data reported by Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hyundai Motor India and JSW MG Motor India broadly corroborated the Vahan retail trend for September 2026, with the five retaining the same relative order on both measures.
With retail demand strengthening and EVs adding another growth engine, the passenger-vehicle market is increasingly being set up for a record year, said Bathini.
Published on October 1, 2026
