Europe: Volkswagen ID.3 Was Second Best Selling Car In December 2020

The Tesla Model 3 was third, but the company has lost most of its market share.

By: Mark Kane

Jan 27, 2021 at 10:19am ET

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The market situation in Europe, in general, is pretty weak. According to JATO Dynamics' report for 27-individual markets, in December new passenger car sales went down by 3.8% to 1.21 million.

The overall result for 2020 is the lowest since 1993 - 11.94 million (down 24% year-over-year). It would be even worse without various incentives in major markets.

Plug-ins noted an exceptionally great month with over 292,000 sales (up 271% year-over-year) and a market share of 24.1%. That's about the same as the level of diesel sales.

"Demand for gasoline and diesel cars (including hybrids and mild-hybrids) fell by 23% each, in contrast with a 271% increase in pure electric cars and plug-in hybrids (EVs). These results close the gap between EVs and diesel cars, with EVs registering a 24.1% market share, compared to the 24.7% share seen for diesel cars. This is particularly significant when compared to December 2019 – when EVs made up only 6.3% of total registrations."

In 2020, about 1.42 million plug-in electric cars were sold in Europe - 147% more than in 2019 (575,000). The average market increased to 12% (data limited to 23-European countries).

An interesting finding is that the Volkswagen Group has almost doubled its share within the BEV segment to 25.2% (one in four all-electric cars), while Tesla dropped from 31% in 2019 to 13.3% in 2020.

Top models - December

In December, the Volkswagen ID.3 (27,997) happened to be the second best-selling car overall, outsold only by the Volkswagen Golf (30,073).

However, the Tesla Model 3 was not far away and actually improved its volume by 11% year-over-year to 24,567.

Let's take a look at the top-selling all-electric and plug-in hybrid models:

Top models - 2020

The Renault ZOE has become the top-selling all-electric car in 2020, delivering a comfortable lead over the Tesla Model 3, while Volkswagen ID.3 managed to become the best of the rest in just a few months of deliveries: