Germany September 2024: VW Tiguan signs first ever pole position

The VW Tiguan is #1 at home for the first time. 

German new car sales remain in negative in September at -7% year-on-year to 208,848, leading to a year-to-date tally off -1% to 2,116,074. We are off -14.6% on pre-pandemic September 2019 (244,622) and year-to-date volumes are down -22.8% over the same period in 2019 (2,740,158). BEV sales are up 8.7% to 34,479 and 16.5% share vs. 14.1% a year ago but down -28.6% year-to-date to 276,390 and 13.1% share vs. 18.1% over the first 9 months of 2023. Volkswagen (-7.4%) follows its home market to 18.6% share, ahead of Mercedes (-13%) in difficulty at 8.8% share. In fact the entire Top 7 brands are unchanged on August and the Top 6 is identical to YTD. Skoda (+34.8%) is the best performer among them at #4 with BMW (+0.7%) also managing a positive result – just. The rest fall faster than the market: Opel is down -20.5%, Audi off -16.6% and Ford down -8.8%. Toyota (+27.8%) is impressive at #9. Further down, notice Volvo (+38.3%) up to #13, Mini (+16%) up to #15 and Lexus (+51.9%) at #31.

We have a first in the models charts: the VW Tiguan (+13%) is helped by the new generation to its first ever German pole position. It seems odd but true: having ranked #2 no less than 39 times (the first one in April 2014), it had never reached the top before. The Golf (-28.1%) is in freefall and knocked down to #2 but firmly remains in the YTD lead. The Mini line up (+16%) is up seven spots on August to #3 just as the Opel Astra (+72.4%) continues on its formidable year at #4. Leader last month, the VW T-Roc (-37.6%) skids to 5th place above the Skoda Octavia (+10.3%) and Opel Corsa (-36%). Excellent results for both the BMW X1 (+44.6%) at #8, its highest ranking this year, and the Skoda Enyaq (+199.6%) lodging its second Top 10 finish at #9 after ending November 2023 at #8. Notice also the surge of the VW ID.7 up 8522.6% year-on-year to break into the Top 20 for the first time at #16. In fact its previous best of #47 was reached just last month. Finally an encouraging sign for the fate of the ID series?

Previous month: Germany August 2024: Market off -27.8%, BEVs down -68.8%, Opel Astra outsells VW Golf

One year ago: Germany September 2023: Incentives end sends BEV down -35%, Tesla off -69.3%, VW Golf at highest in 19 months

Full September 2024 Top 60 All brands and Top 347 All models below.