New figures reveal the Dacia Sandero supermini secured the top spot as the best-selling car across Europe in July.
It marks the first time the no-nonsense Dacia has taken first place on the list since its original launch in 2008.
A total of 20,446 Sanderos were registered last month. This saw the ever-popular Volkswagen Golf, with 19,425 examples sold, nudged into second place,
The latest Dacia topped the charts in France and Spain, and became the eighth best-selling car of 2021 to date.
Electrified sales still growing
Despite this, overall car sales figures across Europe declined after four months of growth, based on analysis by JATO.
Continuing challenges, such as the coronavirus pandemic and semiconductor chip shortage, meant only 970,000 new cars were sold. Compared to July 2019, this represents a 26 percent decline.
Battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids saw another strong month, however. They accounted for 17 percent of all registrations, making July the third-best month ever for electrified models.
At the top of the battery-electric chart was the Volkswagen ID.3, with 5,433 sales. The recently launched Ford Mustang Mach-E made an impressive showing in seventh place, with 3,314 cars.
Diesel decline continues
Ford also saw success by taking the top-selling hybrid spot. With 4,247 examples sold, the plug-in hybrid Kuga SUV was Europe’s favourite, followed by the Peugeot 3008.
Although electrified models continue to gain popularity in Europe, JATO notes their sales are still ‘not enough to offset the big drops posted by diesel cars’.
In July 2019, diesel models accounted for 32 percent of all new European sales, while in July 2021 this figure was just 22 percent. In total, 207,000 fewer diesel cars were registered, but only 125,000 new electrified models found homes during the same period.
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