The Model Y should become the best-selling vehicle of all classes worldwide in the next few years, Tesla announced last April – probably as early as 2023, as CEO Elon Musk specified a little later. First of all, however, this feat only succeeds regionally, monthly and with the Model 3: In Europe it was not only recorded this March the highest number of new registrations among electric cars (followed by the Model Y)but also among all other cars. At the same time, more new cars were sold with electric cars than with diesel drives.
Tesla Model 3 at the top of the month
This is the result of new data from the market research company Jato Dynamics for the 27 most important car countries in Europe. As well as the overall lead of the Tesla Model 3 as well as more electric than diesel new cars had already happened at the end of 2021. In the new year, however, both suffered a slump. At Tesla, this is due to the usual logistics cycle with imports from China, and it also affects the entire proportion of electric cars.
How cyclical Tesla deliveries in Europe are still can be seen directly from the Jato numbers read off. In March 2022, the Model 3 was registered 23,013 times in Europe – and less than 10,000 times in January and February together. In the last month of the first quarter of 2022, the smallest Tesla topped the list of new registrations of all drives. In the entire first quarter (32,652 Model 3), however, it was beaten by a whole range of other cars, above all the Peugeot 208 with 51,890 new registrations (some of them as electric cars).
However, only small and compact cars (also as SUVs) were ahead of the Model 3: Significantly fewer of the BMW 3 Series (24,719 new registrations in Europe in Q1), Audi A4 (17,240) and Mercedes C-Class (16,636) were sold. Only BMW surpassed the Model 3 slightly if you add the related 4 Series to the 3 Series, but Audi, even with the A5, did not make it ahead of the Tesla. In fact, even the Model Y outsold the Audi A4 and A5 together with 25,952 new registrations in the first quarter.
Fewer plug-in hybrids in electric cars
Overall auto sales fell 19 percent in March from March 2021 and 11 percent for the whole first quarter, according to Jato data. From January to March 2022, there were only around 2.7 million new passenger car registrations in Europe – fewer than at any time since 1985. Of the approximately 1.1 million in March, 244,801 were electric cars, more than the diesel cars with 202,000 new registrations, while the petrol number was significantly higher. When it comes to electric cars, it should also be noted that Jato also includes plug-in hybrids. However, their share is decreasing anyway and most recently amounted to 38 percent of new electric cars – with the absolute number falling compared to March 2021.