The entire market is growing almost 22 percent
The provisional European car sales figures for August 2023 give much reason to be happy. There is growth almost everywhere, but Chinese brands often grow faster than average.
The best-selling car in Europe was once again the Tesla Model Y in August 2023, according to figures from Dataforce. According to Automotive News Europe, the car wins that title for the fifth time in eight months, but those five times did not come immediately in succession. For example, in July the Volkswagen T-Roc was still number one, but after a sales drop of 4.4 percent, that car is now competing with the Peugeot 208 for second place. A total of 19,725 Tesla Model Ys were registered with a European license plate in August. Tesla is also doing good business with the Model 3, undoubtedly partly due to its major facelift. The most compact Tesla was sold no less than 278 percent more often than last year and delivered 10,653 orders to Tesla. Volkswagen remains supreme as a brand and will be number 1 by a large margin in August 2023.
It is striking that the Dacia Sandero, which was number one at the beginning of the year, is declining somewhat. The car is now in fourth place and also sold 5.3 percent less well in August than last year. This makes the affordable Dacia an exception, because as a whole the European car market will be up no less than 21.5 percent in August 2023. If we look at the situation for the year to date, i.e. January to August, there is a plus of 17.7 percent.
China
Automotive News notes that Chinese brands are indeed on the rise, as the European Commission also seems to fear. In most cases, the sales growth of Chinese carmakers in Europe exceeds that of the market as a whole.
If we look purely at the parent company’s origins, the largest player in this segment is Geely. With all its brands (Volvo, Polestar, Lynk & Co and Lotus), it has delivered a total of 213,745 cars in 2023. In 2022 this will still be 164,000, which means an increase of 30.33 percent. MG is up 134.3 percent and sold a total of 132,785 cars in Europe this year.
The other Chinese brands are currently still small players in absolute numbers, but are generally rising rapidly. It should be noted that the brands are still being introduced and are working on expanding both model range and operating area, so that the increase percentages are not always representative of the actual situation.
Yet the rise of these brands cannot be missed. BYD, for example, recorded an increase of almost 422 percent and sold a total of 7,077 cars, although it should be noted that the ‘cheap’ Dolphin has yet to arrive. Automotive News puts it in an interesting perspective by comparing certain Chinese newcomers with smaller, traditional players: the unknown Ora in the Netherlands already sold more than Subaru and Jaguar, while BYD did better than Alfa Romeo.
The Dataforce figures are not yet final, so some changes may occur here and there.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl