Dacia’s budget Sandero tops Europe’s sales charts, while Tesla’s 2023 bestseller sees orders fall

Drivers across Europe have been on the hunt for new car deals in 2024 as Dacia’s budget Sandero has emerged as the best-selling model in the first half of the year.

With a starting price of £13,795, the Sandero is officially Britain’s cheapest new model. However, it failed to crack the list of the 10 most popular cars in the UK in the first six months.

While Dacia celebrates its success, Tesla has seen demand for its expensive electric vehicle shrink. The Model Y, last year’s best-selling model in Europe and globally, has seen orders decline in 2024, registration data from across the continent show.

With 143,596 sales across Europe between the beginning of January and the end of June (18.5 percent more than in the same period in 2023), the Sandero has risen to the top of the sales charts.

The affordable supermini has been a huge hit in European countries, with motorists buying these cheap and cheerful little models in significant numbers since Renault relaunched the low-cost Romanian car brand more than a decade ago.

In every year since 2017, it has been the most popular new model in Europe for retail sales to the public using their own cash.

However, its leap to the top of the registration rankings in 2024 is due to sales. across all channels, including fleet and commercial purchasing.

Dacia says sales performance suggests that “demand and confidence in the vehicle is stronger than ever.”

Since it was first introduced in 2008, more than 3.1 million Sanderos have been sold.

However, only 6,721 Sanderos were purchased in the UK in the first half of 2024.

To put that figure into perspective, the most popular new model, the Ford Puma, has racked up 26,374 registrations.

Lagging behind Dacia: Sandero has racked up 143,596 registrations in European car markets so far in 2024

In second place on the European sales charts is the Volkswagen Golf with 126,993 units.

A perennial favourite for decades, the Golf has seen a massive 43 per cent sales increase in the first half of the year, having fallen to seventh place in the overall 2023 registrations rankings.

Rounding out the top three is the Renault Clio with 114,623 sales.

Tesla registrations plummet

The best-selling new car in Europe in 2023 was Tesla’s Model Y, which costs £31,000 more than the cheaper-to-run Dacia.

The £44,990-plus SUV became the first electric vehicle to top the continent’s sales charts and also became the first battery-powered car to claim the title of the world’s best-selling model in the same year.

However, there are few signs that Tesla can repeat this feat.

Registrations in Europe are down more than a quarter (26 percent) from the first half of last year, with just 101,181 Model Ys purchased in 2024 so far, leaving it in eighth place overall.

The Tesla Model Y was the most purchased new car in Europe last year, but has dropped to eighth place overall in 2024

Felipe Muñoz, global analyst at Jato Dynamics, says Tesla’s sales decline is due to three issues, including the emergence of cheaper Chinese EV brands

In fourth place was the VW T-Roc (111,381), followed by the Peugeot 208 (107,097), the Skoda Octavia (102,945) and the Citroën C3 (102,304), in seventh place. Completing the top 10 are the Toyota Yaris Cross SUV (99,694) and the Yaris supermini (99,576).

Jato Dynamics, which compiles sales figures from across Europe to compile registration reports, says that after years of steady growth, Tesla is starting to “show signs of slowing down”, with sales of the brand down 13 per cent.

Global analyst Felipe Muñoz said: ‘This is very similar to what we have seen in the United States and there are three reasons behind this.

‘First, we know that no brand can sustain growth with a limited product line that is beginning to age.

‘Secondly, increasing competition from other brands such as BMW will undoubtedly affect its registrations, and finally, Tesla’s price-cutting strategy planned for 2023 no longer has the same effect as more and more Chinese manufacturers are offering vehicles at competitive prices.’

Chinese brands are on the rise, but tariffs could derail them

Chinese car brands are increasingly popular on the mainland, sales charts show.

Geely Group, which owns Volvo, Polestar and Lotus, increased its electric vehicle registrations by 52 percent in the first half of 2024, outselling Hyundai-Kia, Mercedes and Renault Group.

BYD also registered 17,000 electric cars, 14,000 more than in the first six months of 2023.

BYD’s rapid growth has allowed it to outsell Nissan, Smart, Toyota, Polestar, Citroën, Dacia, Ford, Mini, Porsche and Mazda. As a result, BYD is now the 16th best-selling EV brand in Europe, the second-largest Chinese brand after MG, which was ranked eighth in the EV rankings.

Chinese brand BYD outsells Nissan, Ford, Mini and Porsche in the electric vehicle market

Xpeng registered 2,214 electric cars compared to just 51 in the first half of 2023, while Great Wall Motors doubled its sales volumes.

“Strong domestic competition is the driving force behind the extraordinary level of progress seen in China,” Muñoz explained.

‘However, the associated impacts of market saturation, oversupply and a price war mean that, for many, overseas expansion will be critical to meeting their growth ambitions.’

Chinese carmakers are increasing their presence in European markets, especially in the electric vehicle sector

The popularity of Chinese brands in Europe could also be hit if massive new tariffs imposed by the EU earlier this month remain in place.

The new additional tariffs on individual manufacturers range from 17.4 percent to 37.6 percent and are on top of existing 10 percent tariffs already in place for all electric vehicles arriving from China.

The move will increase the price of cheap Chinese electric cars, especially MG models, because its parent company SAIC is subject to the highest tariffs of all, now totaling almost 50 percent.

And the decision could also lead to a rise in the price of electric Teslas and Minis.

The tariffs are “provisional”, meaning they will be added but will not have to be paid until they are confirmed by a vote of EU governments in November.

And the EU will only collect the duties if it is also found that the European car industry would have suffered material damage without them.

The move follows an eight-month EU investigation into China’s electric vehicle sector.

Companies making electric cars in China have been found to benefit from massive government subsidies that allow them to offer lower prices than their EU rivals.

This, in turn, has unfairly helped Chinese brands gain greater market share while threatening European car companies and jobs on the continent, the investigation concluded.

The EU is now the largest destination for Chinese EV exports, accounting for 33 percent of the total in 2023, the European Commission said.

“The measures adopted by the European Union to impose tariffs on imports of electric vehicles (BEV) from China target models that accounted for 17 percent of BEV registrations in Europe during the first half of 2024, excluding possible units imported by Tesla,” Muñoz said.