Tesla Model 3 was Europe’s second best-selling car in June

Tesla Model 3 MIC waiting to be shipped to Europe
Tesla Model 3 MIC waiting to be shipped to Europe

In June the Tesla Model 3 was Europe’s second best-selling car, only behind the Volkswagen Golf.

 

Let’s see the sales chart.

 

Top 10 of best-selling cars in Europe in June 2021

 

  1. Volkswagen Golf: 27.247
  2. Tesla Model 3: 25.697
  3. Dacia Sandero: 22.764
  4. Renault Clio: 22.254
  5. Fiat/Abarth 500: 22.179
  6. Toyota Yaris: 21.698
  7. Volkswagen T-Roc: 21.576
  8. Opel/Vauxhall Corsa: 21.124
  9. Renault Captur: 20.168
  10. Volkswagen Polo: 18.789

 

Unfortunately, Tesla is the only automaker that sells in Europe electric cars that compete with ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars.

Currently, legacy automakers overprice electric cars to protect the sales of their ICE counterparts. They want to sell as many ICE vehicles as they can, while it’s still possible.

 

Volkswagen

  • Golf: 27.247
  • ID.3: 6.999 (26 %)

 

Renault

  • Clio: 22.254
  • ZOE: 8.217 (37 %)

 

Fiat

  • 500 ICE: 17.196
  • 500 EV: 4.983 (29 %)

 

Since it’s clear that Volkswagen doesn’t want the ID.3 to compete with the Golf for the first place anytime soon, it’ll have to be Tesla to bring a good electric compact hatchback and kick Volkswagen’s gassy ass in Europe. With the much-awaited Tesla “Model 2”, we might finally have an electric car leading the sales chart. Unless BYD does it first with the Dolphin (EA1) or the Yuan Pro…

 

Top 10 best-selling cars in Europe in June 2021 by JATO

Top 10 best-selling cars in Europe in June 2021 by JATO

 

How long will it take to see more electric cars in the top 10 of best-selling cars in Europe?

 

 

More info:

https://www.jato.com/teslas-model-3-continues-to-perform-well-becoming-europes-second-best-selling-car-in-june/

Pedro Lima

My interest in electric transportation is mostly political. I’m tired of coups and wars for oil. My expectation is that the adoption of electric transportation will be a factor for peace and democracy all over the world.

13 Responses

  1. Lupetto says:

    Hallo, in my opinion price is a good mean to moderate sales mainly due battery shortage (for now ..). Price factor is a good argument. Tesla with Model 3 said it is a premium car and the price reflect this. Here in Europe with import, VAT, different market logics the price is not affordable for everyone. So if the equation is electric = expensive other carmakers feel authorized to have high prices, with no reason I say. A good example is the Hyundai Kona, it is available electric, hybrid, diesel, petrol. Two years ago I was very interested but from the fist to you last price was double. I didn’t purchase the car …

    • Rodri says:

      Hi Lupetto, automakers can be using the “battery shortage” excuse to avoid tougher CO2 regulations but the reality is that today they are producing all the electric cars they planned 2, 3 or even 5 years ago. This is the time that can take for the supply chain to adapt and provide you with batteries. Automakers know that, only they didn´t ask for more batteries because they wanted to keep selling ICE. By making EVs expensive they keep them away of mass adoption.

      • Rodri says:

        VW recognized that making the ID.3 was 40% cheaper that the VW e-Golf. Still, the ID.3 is sold with a higher price tag.

        • Lupetto says:

          Yes I have read that they are 40% cheaper …. This makes us understand how smart they are.

        • Flo says:

          In contrast to Tesla, VW is actually supply constraint with only one MEB factory (Zwickau) running for the European and US market right now. It’s also a question of competition. The ID.3 has probably a lot less competitors compared to the ID.4, which is priced +20% above the ID.3. If you compare VW Golf and Tiguan, you have to pay roughly +50% for entry level models.

  2. Flo says:

    Monthly statistics don’t matter with Tesla in Europe, since they ship and deliver cars mostly in the second and the third month of a quarter.
    Even more important than overall statistics are segments. In Germany just under 50% of A segment sales are now BEVs with the VW UP! taking the lead. In the luxury segement, the Taycan, E-tron GT and now the EQS might reach up to 50% of total sales by the end of the year. In other segments (C to E) electrification is still mostly plug-in (PHEV) driven.

  3. Famlin says:

    so nice to see Tesla being #2 overall and #1 among plugins. but this happens only in quarter-end months. i hope this will change slowly when giga-berlin starts production at least for model y.

    for now the real good news is fall of diesel cars in europe.
    but only when the chip issue fades away, we will get a clear picture.

  4. Ferenc Tóth says:

    Sometimes people (mostly Tesla fans) say, that legacy automakers can not sell EVs with profit. Now you say, that the prices are artificially high, which means that they have to have a very high profit on them. So which one is true?
    I believe economically it would be very foolish decision not to use the full manufacturing capacity they currently have on EVs and batteries. So at this moment, I do not believe that e.g. VW holds back its id.3 sales for Golf sales.
    Also, I think they really wanted to beat Tesla sales numbers in BEVs, but because in China for some reason they can not sell id.4/6 too well, they will not be able to do this. They have allocated 2 factories with 300-600k/year MEB BEV capacity in China. With Chatanooga starting soon they did have a chance to reach Tesla numbers. Now, because of bad China sales, the likelihood of this is much smaller. But I still believe they still want to be close to Tesla numbers. At least at 50% level as a minimum.

    • Ferenc Tóth says:

      Also, I did think about this a little bit more: Id.4 is much cheaper in USA and China than Model Y and I believe this is also true in Europe, although I did not research the comparison. for EU deeply.

    • Marcel says:

      Ferenc, I believe the truth is that the legacy automakers do sell EVs for profit with artificially high prices, but not a very high profit currently. This is because they’re currently manufacturing at low volumes, so the unit costs are still higher than ICE, and because they include the R&D costs with the costs of the EVs. If they had the capacity to build and sell in much higher numbers, they would be able to drop the prices on their EVs. And if they had a larger variety of EVs to sell, they could spread the costs of R&D across multiple models.

      Eg. all of GM’s R&D money spent on EVs has gone into 2 low volume cars: the Volt and the Bolt. All their ICE R&D goes into dozens of models, including many different high volume SUVs and trucks.

      VW is now spreading their R&D around with the MEB platform, and GM and Hyundai/Kia also seem to be making their EV efforts much more efficient.

      There are a number of reasons that they don’t want to drop the prices on their EVs, but the main one is that if they do lower the costs on their EVs, they will lose a lot of ICEV sales because most people will buy the EV if it’s close to price parity. This will badly hurt their overall profitability in the short term, and render all their sunk costs in ICEV manufacturing capacity much less valuable, which hurts them in the long term.

      They also can’t expand EV manufacturing capacity fast enough because they assumed EVs would be a niche market and didn’t bother to secure adequate battery supply. BYD and Tesla, being vertically integrated manufacturers, look like they’re going to dominate the EV markets, because their manufacturing is coming on line faster.

      So now they’re stuck without a good plan to transition, as the transition is now obviously inevitable. They will have to make EVs, and they will have to price them competitively, but they will quickly lose their main ICE sources of profit before they can make enough EVs.

  5. Prasad says:

    The Telsa model 3 is one of the best selling models from Tesla. The company will also soon enter the Indian market with a big bang. But what’s causing more hype in the Indian market is the Ola electric scooter. It is feature packed and has a top speed of 115 kmph. The electric revolution has started and we will see more manufacturers jumping onto the electric bandwagon. But my only concern is will nations be able to generate the extra electricity required for these vehicles in the long run and what could be the potential drawbacks of the EV revolution?

  6. Hans says:

    Odd conclusion in the article. So far this year VAG has 28% marketshare, and Tesla is on a shared 3rd place together with Renault- Nissan on 12%, ahead are Stellantis 15%. Yes, VAG are selling more x2 number of EV comapre to Tesla in EU! But they dont want sell them…
    All numbers for the 11 EU states with minimum numbers every month, ev-evs exellent homepage. Cover about 80% of all EV sales in EU.(+.Norway).
    Offcourse the sale in mid size high volume market will not be 1:1 then the overall EV market now is 15-20% as the best. And a quite high number of EV are in the higer more expensive classes. But still if comparing all VAG MEB cars with the mid class segment, it is likely not so far of the average EV share.

  7. Apkungen says:

    If you incorporate sale price measuring the revenue from these cars the model 3 wins by almost 100 percent margin!

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