Electric stuff: BMW leads monthly BEV registrations in Europe for the first time

Demand for cars in Europe increased by 1.5% year-over-year in July compared to a year ago, according to JATO Dynamics’ data for 28 European markets. The data showed that a total of 1.03 million units were registered in the Europe 28 region, taking the number of year-to-date registrations to almost 7.9 million.

Growth was particularly prominent in Poland (+19%), Portugal (+27%), and Slovakia (+12%). There were also slight increases in the UK (+3%), Italy (+5%), and Spain (+5%). In contrast, vehicle registrations decreased in Germany (-2%), France (-2%), Belgium (-7%), the Netherlands (-4%), and Ireland (-5%).

Volkswagen saw registrations decline 3% in July to 108,659, but that mark was easily ahead of the 75,338 registrations for Toyota Motor (TM) and 64,012 registrations for BMW (OTCPK:BMWYY). The Dacia Sandero was the region’s most sought-after car in July, registering 22,400 units – an increase of 34%. That was over 3,000 units more than the second best-selling car, the Volkswagen T-Roc (introduced in 2017).

BMW (OTCPK:BMWYY) was the best-selling battery electric vehicle brand for the first time in Europe, per JATO Dynamics. The German automaker had 14,869 BEVs registered in July to beat out Tesla (TSLA) by a few hundred. Volkswagen, Volvo (OTCPK:VLVOF), and Audi rounded out the top five in terms of monthly registrations. The Tesla (TSLA) Model Y was the best-selling model for the month, while the Audi Q4 saw the biggest year-over-year percentage gain of the top ten models.

The monthly registrations data can be influenced by the timing of model introductions.