The Tesla Model Y has been named the best-selling car in Europe for March.
According to Jato Dynamics, EV sales are declining while hybrid numbers are on the up, with a total of 382,700 hybrid vehicles registered between January and March this year – the highest number of quarterly registrations since 2021.
Even though Tesla’s share in the EV market has dropped from 27.3 per cent in March 2023 to 19.9 per cent last month, the firm still managed to shift 26,847 Model Ys – over 1,000 more than the second best-selling car – the Volkswagen Golf at 25,779 units.
Felipe Munoz, Global Analyst at Jato Dynamics said: “The average price of a new car is still prohibitively high, and consumers are understandably hesitant about making the shift from petrol and diesel powered vehicles to electric models.
Hybrid sales were up by 18 per cent in the corresponding quarter of 2023 compared to year-on-year increases of 3.8 per cent and 4.8 per cent for EVs.
Munoz added: “Consumers are familiar with hybrid vehicles; they’ve been in the market for more than two decades now. For many drivers, they are the best option: cheaper than EVs at point of purchase and not reliant on public charging infrastructure that simply isn’t there in many markets.”
Despite the slowdown in EV uptake, Tesla was still at the top of the chart for BEV sales with a total of 39,000 units registered in March closely followed by BMW and then Volvo thanks to the success of its new EX30 model. In all, some 1,377,541 vehicles of all types were registered across Europe in March.