European car sales registered its seventh consecutive monthly drop in March 2019 with a decline of 3.6% from the month of February, according to JATO Dynamics. The total number of registrations in Q1 2019 totalled 4.13 million vehicles, which represented a 3.2% dip from the same period in 2018.
In its report, the company cited various factors for the fall in demand, including ongoing political and economic uncertainties like the Brexit issue and diesel bans in cities, as well as lack of consumer confidence.
Last month, 19 of the 27 markets included in the report registered negative sales results, with only Denmark, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Hungary, Luxembourg and Switzerland seeing green.
Despite the lower overall demand, registrations of electrified cars – battery electric vehicle (BEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) – hit 125,400 units, making it the first time that such vehicles have exceeded the 100,000-unit mark. Demand grew by 31%, driven by demand from Holland, Spain, Norway and Germany.
Still on the topic of electrified cars, the Tesla Model 3 was recognised as Europe’s top-selling electric car, with registrations jumping from 3,747 units in February to 15,755 units in March.
On the other hand, diesel cars continued to suffer, recording the lowest monthly market share since September 2000. In March, diesel registrations accounted for 31.2% of total volume against the 36.2% recorded during the same corresponding month in 2018, and 44.8% in 2017.
Looking at vehicle segments, SUVs continued to dominate the market, with 650,300 units registered, or 36.8% of total volume. This is followed by subcompacts (20.4%), compacts (17%), city cars (7.8%), midsize cars (6.7%), MPVs (4.6%), vans (3.1%) and executive cars (2.4%) – all experiencing declines with the exceptions of vans.
Thanks to the Model 3, Tesla became one of the biggest winners in March, with a year-on-year (YoY) growth of 276%, registering 17,440 units. Other gainers include Audi, Citroen, Dacia, Seat, Volvo, MINI and Mitsubishi.
As for individual car models, the Volkswagen Golf continued to lead in Europe despite a 14% drop in volume in March. It was also a good month for the Citroen C3, Mercedes-Benz A-Class, Dacia Duster and Volkswagen T-Roc.
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Honda is doing pretty badly in Europe. It even sold less cars than Mitsubishi.
Every car manufacturer is moving towards EV because EV is the future.
I am still waiting for Iriz EV
Ready for mass production when the market is ready. And?
What EV is Honda making BTW?
Ramalingham Murthy on Apr 30, 2019 at 9:13 pm
I pity our EV efforts. We were moving happily towards EV until the RM126k battery scandal appeared.
After that EV sales went to ZERO. Over 10 years of educating the public about the benefits of EV has gone down the drain
Like this?
only here we worship honda ; )
Volvo Corolla?
BMW A-class?
Daimler Qashqai?
Where can I find these cars?
Just wondering, what kind of diesel vehicles are the Europeans buying? Are they passenger cars or trucks and the kind?
The passenger car kind.
And they are mostly with three pedals.