The Tesla Model Y made history in 2023 when it became the first EV to top the European sales charts, but the picture looks very different just a few months later. New figures show that the Model Y fell from first place in May 2023 to 18th place last month.
Model Y sales fell 49 percent to 10,582, according to Dataforce. Buyers across the continent have cooled on the idea of buying EVs, and the removal of government subsidies, in addition to a dockworkers' strike in Sweden, affected Tesla's deliveries.
But Tesla's misfortune is cause for celebration at VW, which had two cars vying for the top spot in May. The company's T-Roc crossover has been around since 2017 and is about to get a facelift, but it still managed to post a 12 percent sales increase in May compared to the same month in 2023. That puts it temporarily in first place, ahead of the third-place Dacia Sandero, which was narrowly edged out by the Model Y last year and is still ahead overall this year after topping the chart for five months.
However, the Sandero was relegated to third place this May by the freshly facelifted VW Golf. Wolfsburg's hatch has been Europe's best-selling car for decades, but seemed to struggle in recent years as buyers turned to more fashionable crossovers and SUVs. But the latest model, which doesn't look much different on the outside but has a much-improved interior that fixes some of the terrible switchgear introduced for the 2019 Mk8, has made a sales comeback, with deliveries up 28 percent.
The data has yet to be ratified and Auto News believes the Golf could actually overtake the T-Roc to regain first place when results from all markets are counted. The provisional figures put the T-Roc on 19,748 sales, the Golf on 19,333 and the Sandero down 10 percent to 18,676.
Source: Automotive News
