This is a turning point in the automotive era: for decades, the VW Golf was at the top of the European sales charts. That’s history now. The compact model from Wolfsburg falls to fifth place, a French small car conquers the bestseller throne in Europe.
The Peugeot 208 has dethroned the VW Golf as the best-selling car in Europe. The French supermini found 206,816 new owners last year, according to data from consultancy Jato, which collects, compiles and publishes information from the automotive industry. As a result, the Wolfsburg compact model only came fifth with 177,203 new registrations.
There are several reasons for the relegation of Volkswagen’s permanent bestseller. Perhaps the most important of these is the VW T-Roc: the crossover, which is closely related to the Golf, ranked third overall with 181,153 new registrations. Certainly also because it persuaded one or two older Golf buyers to switch. Especially since the back-friendly “Plus” body variant with its raised seating position is no longer offered for the Golf. Last but not least, Volkswagen itself has made the Golf obsolete by publicly establishing the ID.3 electric car as the ideal successor as the flagship of the brand. However, the compact electric car didn’t even make it into Europe’s top 50 – probably not least because of supply bottlenecks.
In general, little has remained of North German dominance in the car bestseller list – the former top ten permanent guests VW Polo (24th place) and Tiguan (22nd place) are now only at the bottom of the field.
In second place is the Dacia Sandero (200,550 new registrations), as in the previous year, a cheap small car from the Renault Group, the top ten is completed by Fiat 500 (179,863 units), Toyota Yaris (175,713 units), Opel Corsa (164,358 units) , Hyundai Tucson (150,803 units), Dacia Duster (149,648 units) and Renault Clio (143,561 units).
The Tesla Model Y, which secured several monthly victories over the course of the year, lands just outside the group of ten with 138,123 new registrations.
