The Dacia Sandero beat out the Renault Clio and Volkswagen Golf for the European sales crown in 2024.
Good news! The Dacia Sandero was Europe’s best-selling car for 2024.
With a whopping 268,101 examples making its way all around the old continent last year, this affordable hatchback from the Romanian marque has comfortably beaten out its posher Renault Clio counterpart for the top spot in sales by some 50,000 units. The final spot on the podium meanwhile belonged to the Volkswagen Golf, which just lost the runner up position by 602 cars.
Europe’s sales king in 2023 on the other hand, the Tesla Model Y, was pushed down to fourth place with 209,214 registrations in 2024, ahead of the fifth place T-Roc which rounds off all the models that managed to crack over 200,000 sales last year. The American all-electric crossover incidentally also holds the rather undignified title of witnessing largest year-on-year sales drop of any vehicle in the top 36 at 17%, though it nevertheless is still the best selling EV in the old continent.
Here’s a list of the top 20 best selling cars in Europe for 2024:
| Ranking | Model | 2024 Sales | Change vs. 2023 |
| 1 | Dacia Sandero | 268,101 | 14% |
| 2 | Renault Clio | 216,317 | 7% |
| 3 | Volkswagen Golf | 215,715 | 17% |
| 4 | Tesla Model Y | 209,214 | -17% |
| 5 | Volkswagen T-Roc | 202,840 | -1% |
| 6 | Peugeot 208 | 199,909 | 3% |
| 7 | Toyota Yaris Cross | 194,006 | 10% |
| 8 | Skoda Octavia | 180,607 | 12% |
| 9 | Dacia Duster | 175,213 | 13% |
| 10 | Toyota Yaris | 174,042 | 12% |
| 11 | Kia Sportage | 168,017 | 11% |
| 12 | Volkswagen Tiguan | 164,604 | 17% |
| 13 | Opel/Vauxhall Corsa | 162,103 | -14% |
| 14 | Peugeot 2008 | 162,028 | 2% |
| 15 | Citroen C3 | 160,583 | 11% |
| 16 | Hyundai Tucson | 154,717 | -2% |
| 17 | Ford Puma | 149,112 | -7% |
| 18 | Renault Captur | 147,178 | 1% |
| 19 | Nissan Qashqai | 140,330 | -3% |
| 20 | Volkswagen Polo | 135,303 | -3% |
Now taking a more macro view of new car sales in Europe last year, the market as a whole experienced a modest year-on-year increase of 0.9%. 12,909,741 new vehicles were registered during 2024 across the 25 European Union member states plus the UK, Norway and Switzerland.
SUVs remained the most popular body style of car in Europe last year, with the 6.92 million examples sold accounting for a record 54% of all new car registrations in the old continent in 2024. SUV sales were up 4% compared relative to 2023, with 27 of the 50 best-selling models coming from this segment.
Supermini sales in Europe however also grew by 1.3% last year, with some 2 million new units of these small cars finding homes across the continent last year. The traditional C-segment hatchbacks and larger D-segment saloons however unfortunately witnessed a year-on-year sales decline by 1.3% and 3.3% respectively.
As for best-selling brands last year, Volkswagen remained on the top spot with 1,354,966 registrations. This is then to be followed by Toyota with 916,522 sales, with the podium places to be rounded off by BMW with 770,249 deliveries.
Interestingly, Skoda was actually rather close to BMW in annual European sales last year, having shifted 757,000 cars. Mercedes-Benz meanwhile wafts into 5th place in this ranking, with 709,721 three-pointed stars being delivered across the old continent last year.
After several years of growth, the EV market share of new car sales in Europe shrunk by 0.3% to 15.4% last year. Hybrids on the other hand were the only other powertrain type to grow their market share in 2024, up 1.9% to account for 11.8% of the total market.
What is perhaps an even more surprising statistic is for almost one in two hybrids registered in Europe last year to either be a Toyota or Lexus. The Dacia Sandero was in turn was the sole ICE-only vehicle in the European top 10.
