Tesla expanded its volume by more than 1,000 percent year over year.
March 15, 2023 at 12:33 p.m. ET
The European passenger car market continued its recovery in January, thanks to the growing popularity of SUVs and fully electric cars.
JATO dynamics reports that the number of new registrations increased by 11 percent year-on-year to 907,000 (in 27 countries monitored by the company). This is a positive sign, although the volume was still lower than a few years ago.
One of the most interesting things is that SUVs reached a new record market share of 51.3 percent (including all types: small, compact, midsize and luxury crossover/SUVs), thanks to an increase of 14 enrollments in January (up to 464,900).
Another engine of growth is battery electric vehicles (BEVs), which also expanded their volume by 14 percent year-on-year, to 92,700.
In accordance with JATO dynamicsthe most registered all-electric model in January was the Tesla Model Y with 7,174 units, which doesn’t surprise us since it’s right in the middle of the hottest segments (BEVs and SUVs).
The other popular models were the Dacia Spring (4,242), the Volkswagen ID.4 (3,812), the Volkswagen ID.3 (3,348) and the Fiat 500 Electric (3,248), but none of them were even close to Tesla Model Y.
An interesting finding is that the Tesla brand saw a 1,018 percent increase in registrations (to nearly 9,400 units) compared to January 2022, which was a slow month for the company. The biggest part of that is the Tesla Model Y, but there’s also the Model 3 and the recently introduced and refreshed Tesla Model S and Model X.
For reference, Volkswagen increased its BEV sales by 29% year-on-year (achieving a very similar volume to Tesla), Audi by 29% (up to 6,400), BMW by 28% and Mercedes-Benz by 16%.
Although Tesla continues to expand and is seeing some interesting results, the brand is still relatively small in Europe: in January it was behind Suzuki, Mini and Jeep. Time will tell if the company will be able to improve its position. Especially given the quarter-end rush, there is potential for a much higher position.
