Europe Full Year 2024: Dacia Sandero signs first ever win

The Dacia Sandero is the most popular vehicle across Europe in 2024.

Discover over 50 years of European Historical Data here.

According to preliminary data by ACEA, the European new car market (27 countries EU+EFTA+UK) ends 2024 up just 0.9% to 12,963,614 units, that’s 116,000 more sales than in 2023. Among the Big 5 markets, Spain is up 7.1%, the UK up 2.6%, Italy is down -0.5%, Germany down -1% and France down -3.2%. The best performing European markets this year are Poland (+16.1%), Bulgaria (+13.8%), Hungary (+12.9%), Croatia (+12.7%) and Estonia (+11.2%). At the other end of the stick, we have Iceland (-41.7%), Finland (-15.4%), Latvia (-8.4%) and Sweden (-7%).

One of the main events of the year is the weakness of BEV sales, at -1.3% to 1,993,102 and 15.4% share vs. 15.7% in 2023. However this is solely due to the collapse of German BEV sales at -27.4% to 380,609 due to the end of incentives. When removing Germany, European BEV sales are actually up a robust 7.9%. Looking at BEV penetration in the Top 5 markets, the UK is in the lead at 19.6% ahead of France at 16.9%, Germany at 13.5%, Spain at 5.6% and Italy at 4.2%. Countries where BEV sales improved the most in 2024 are Malta (+90.5%), Czechia (+63.5%), Cyprus (+51.4%), Hungary (+47.7%), Denmark (+42.2%), Belgium (+36.9%) and Greece (+36.5%). On the other hand, there are worrying trends in Iceland (-69.7%), Romania (-32.2%), Latvia (-28.9%), Slovenia (-27.3%) and Finland (-26%).

The Volkswagen Group advances 2.5% to 3.4 million sales, distancing Stellantis in trouble at -7.3%. The Renault Group follows at +3.2% and outsold Stellantis in December like it did in 2023. Hyundai-Kia (-3.9%) struggles just as the Toyota Group (+13.1%) catches up fast and crosses the million annual sales landmark. The BMW Group (+1%) is also in positive. In the brands charts, Volkswagen (+1%) matches the market at 1.37 million sales while Toyota (+12%) sells 100,000 units more than in 2023 and strengthens its 2nd place. BMW (+6.3%), Skoda (+12.7%), Renault (+2.7%) and Mercedes (+1.8%) all progress faster than the market and take advantage of Audi’s fall (-9.6%) from #3 to #7. Peugeot (+0.6%) stays at #8 with Dacia (+3.9%) and Hyundai (+0.01%) rounding out the Top 10. Volvo (+28.4%), Cupra (+10.1%) and Seat (+10%) also impress below.

Over in the models ranking, the Dacia Sandero jumps into its first ever annual win. We’ll upload detailed models data when made available to us.

Previous year: Europe 2023: Tesla Model Y spectacularly takes the lead

2 years ago: Europe 2022: Peugeot 208 ends VW Golf’s 14-year domination, market down -4.1%

Full December and Year 2024 Top 10 groups and Top 30 brands vs. Full Year 2023 data below.