2020 European Vehicle Sales Rankings – Every Vehicle Ranked By Sales Volume
After looking at the manufacturers and brands rankings for 2020, let’s take a deeper look at car sales by model in Europe. The Volkswagen Golf still sits on top of the rnaking, for the 13th year in a row and for the 33rd time in 38 years. However, its 30.6% decline is the worst of the top-7 and the 93,000 sales gap to the #2 in 2019 has shrunk to 37,000 sales. The Golf also wasn’t the best selling model in Europe for 3 months in 2020, as the Renault Clio topped the ranking in February, May and June. The biggest threat to the Golf in 2021 comes from within, as the Volkswagen ID.3 is likely to steal away a lot of sales, now that the e-Golf has been discontinued and electric cars continue to gain market share.
The Clio is followed by the two PSA subcompact siblings Peugeot 208 and Opel/Vauxhall Corsa, which add up to nearly 400,000 combined sales, as both are down by just over 10%. This is the highest ranking ever for the 208, although its predecessor took the #1 spot in 2007 and was on the podium in the two subsequent years. The Corsa hasn’t been as high as fourth since 2012. The Skoda Octavia and Toyota Yaris break into the top-10, both gaining eight places on 2019 and setting new record rankings. The Octavia’s previous best was 8th place in 2014 and 2018, while the highest the Yaris has ever been was 10th in 2018.
Best selling crossover is the Renault Captur, stealing that title from the Volkswagen Tiguan which held it for two years, following the Nissan Qashqai. The Tiguan and the Volkswagen Polo both lose more than a third of their sales in 2020 as well as 5 and 6 places respectively. The Ford Focus is the best selling Ford in Europe for the first time since 2008, helped by its new generation and the fact that the Fiesta is cannibalized by the new Puma crossover. Fiesta sales are down 31.8% in 2020 as the model drops 10 places to #15. But it’s not the worst performing model in the top-20, as the Dacia Duster is down 36.7% into 19th place. The Nissan Qashqai does even worse at -38%, dropping to #21 and the Peugeot 3008 is down 35.8% into 23rd place. Best performing models in the top-25 are the Toyota Corolla (#20, +2.7%), BMW 3-Series (#24, -5%) and Peugeot 2008 (#14, -5.3%).
Best selling luxury model is the Mercedes-Benz A-Class in 12th place, ahead of the BMW 3-Series at #24 and the Volvo XC40 at #30. The Hyundai Kona sets a new annual sales record for the nameplate and moves up 25 places to #22, helped by its EV version which represented over 37% of sales for the nameplate, and the hybrid which took another 22% of its total sales. The Ford Puma lands in the top-25 in its first year of sales with over 118,000 deliveries, which is slightly below the annual figure of the Ford EcoSport in 2019, but that’s because of the Puma started the year slowly. By the second half of the year, the Puma averaged 13,670 monthly sales, above the EcoSport’s peak month. In 2020, the EcoSport (#93) saw its sales tumble by 60.5% due to cannibalization from the Puma.
Other great performers in the top-100 are the Renault Zoe (#33, +120.3% to a new annual sales record), the Fiat Ducato (#90, +44% to a new annual sales record) thanks to the demand for camper vans during lockdown times when hotels were closed and international flights off limits. Also outperforming are the Kia Niro (#49, +35.7% to a new annual sales record), Nissan Juke (#74, +22.9%) and Mercedes-Benz CLA (#64, +8.7% to a new annual sales record). On the other end of the scale, the Ford Kuga (#48) loses more than 50% of its sales on 2019, partially because Ford registered a lot of old generation Kugas in the last few months of 2019 and partially because they had to halt sales of the popular Plug-in hybrid version of the new generation in the last quarter of 2020. Also struggling are the Opel/Vauxhall Astra (#57, -48.4%), Suzuki Vitara (#99, -46.6% as it awaits an update with more efficient turbo engines), Mercedes-Benz C-Class (#46, -42.8% as a new generation is due), Renault Megane (#53, -42.3%) and Kadjar (#65, -42.1%).
Besides those already mentioned, we see record annual sales for the Mercedes-Benz GLE (#107), MG ZS (#144), Jaguar I-Pace (#171) thanks to a large batch of (self-)registrations in December, which accounted for one third of the model’s annual sales. The Opel Ampera-e also sets a new annual sales record in its last year of sales. In fact, almost 90% of its sales of 2020 were in the first half of the year.
Newcomer Models
Best selling newcomers (<12 months) are the Volkswagen ID.3, landing at #79 despite just fourth month of sales, followed by the Opel/Vauxhall Zafira Life at #185, the Mazda MX-30 EV at #187, Polestar 2 EV at #191, Toyota Proace City Verso at #193 and Volkswagen ID.4, landing at #229 despite landing only in December. The Honda e lands at #239, ahead of the Ford Explorer at #255, Suzuki Swace at #258, Suzuki Across at #264 and Dacia Spring at #269.
2020 European Vehicle Sales by Model
This sales data table looks at sales performance for every model sold in Europe for the entire year. It includes all major models sold in the European market and you can see that the sales trends clearly. Seeing the individual model sales performance in this way gives you a good sense of the momentum (good or bad).
| Model | Month | Month LY | Change | YTD | YTD LY | YTD Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ∑ = | ∑ = | ∑ = | ∑ = |
