Automotive News Europe - March 2020 - 30

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

DATA

Car-tastrophe
In 36 months 2.15 million European customers picked SUVs over other body types
LUCA CIFERRI

lciferri@autonews.com

uropean vehicle sales grew by just 1.4 percent to 15.3 million last year, but volumes of SUVs and crossovers of every
size and price grew by 13 percent to 5.7 million, adding 650,000
annual sales to a sector that in 2018 grew by 18 percent -- or
800,000 units -- to 5 million. The latest surge in demand meant
that SUVs and crossovers grew to 37 percent of total European
sales, up from 33 percent in 2018 and 29 percent in 2017, figures from market researcher JATO Dynamics show.
Minivans were the biggest losers again in 2019. Sales were
down by a third for small minivans and by 26 percent for compact people movers. Demand for large minivans, however,
rose 4.5 percent to 145,095 units fueled by strong demand
for the Mercedes-Benz V class and Seat Alhambra. The segment that suffered the biggest decrease in volume was small
cars, which declined by 152,806 units. A contributing factor
was that many customers were probably waiting for the new
generations of the No. 1 and No. 5 sellers, the Renault Clio
and Peugeot 208, respectively, which were both replaced last
year (see charts, Pages 31-33).
The electric vehicle segment recorded a Europe-best 82 percent increase in sales to 356,249 units. The segment has a new
leader, the Tesla Model 3 (for an in-depth analysis of fullelectric car and plug-in hybrid sales, see Pages 12-14).
Having progressively abandoned coupes and convertibles offered by volume brands, down a combined 16 percent last year
to 50,234 units, buyers in Europe are also starting to walk away
from premium coupes, down 16 percent. Premium convertibles,
meanwhile, slid by 1.8 percent. Not surprisingly, Mercedes is expected to discontinue the coupe and convertible variants of its
flagship S class sedan that launches later this year.
A closer look at the seven SUV and crossover segments that
Automotive News Europe monitors using JATO data shows that
the small SUV sector, led by the Renault Captur, nearly overtook compact SUVs to become Europe's biggest SUV segment.
Last year, small SUV sales grew 20 percent to 1.92 million units
while the compact SUV sector was up 8 percent to 2.09 million.
With sales up by 1.1 percent to 223,059 units, the Volkswagen Tiguan ended the Nissan Qashqai's long reign as Europe's
best-selling compact crossover. Qashqai sales fell by 6.2 percent to 219,331. Despite its growth, the Tiguan was beaten
by 575 units by the smaller Renault Captur in the race to be
Europe's top-selling SUV overall. The Captur's sales rose 4.5
percent to 223,634, helped by the arrival of the SUV's secondgeneration model last fall. The changeover to the eight-generation VW Golf from the seven-generation model didn't have
any negative effects as the model easily retained its title as
Europe's best-selling passenger vehicle overall. With almost
350,000 sales, the Golf's closest rival was the Renault Clio,
which finished the year 32,000 units behind. ANE

www.autonewseurope.com

Segment winners 2019
Electric
Midsize Premium
Small SUV & Crossover
Premium Compact SUV & Crossover
Midsize SUV & Crossover
Premium Large SUV & Crossover
Compact SUV & Crossover
Large Minivan
Premium Midsize SUV & Crossover
Exotic

82%
22%
20%
19%
17%
8.4%
8.0%
4.5%
4.0%
4.0%

Largest segments 2019
Small
Compact
Compact SUV & Crossover
Small SUV & Crossover
Minicar
Compact Premium
Premium Compact SUV & Crossover
Midsize Premium
Premium Midsize SUV & Crossover
Midsize

2,685,294
2,163,768
2,090,173
1,922,692
1,101,778
746,612
614,349
540,175
515,155
403,922

Segment losers 2019
Small Minivan
Large SUV & Crossover
Compact Minivan
Upper Premium
Premium Coupe
Coupe & Convertible
Midsize
Large Premium
Small
Compact

-33%
-31%
-26%
-22%
-21%
-16%
-14%
-11%
-5.4%
-4.5%

SUVs soar a to new record
Compact SUV & Crossover
Small SUV & Crossover
Premium Compact SUV & Crossover
Premium Midsize SUV & Crossover
Midsize SUV & Crossover
Premium Large SUV & Crossover
Large SUV & Crossover
Total SUV & Crossover

2,090,173
1,922,692
614,349
515,155
287,854
280,266
10,636
5,721,125

ANE analysis of JATO Dynamics figures

MARCH 2020

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Automotive News Europe - March 2020

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