January saw a surge in sales of Chinese electric vehicles across Europe building market share.
According to Jatro Dynamics, although the overall European car market posted a decline of 1.9% year on year, Chinese car brands continued to accelerate, with 37,134 vehicles registered in January, an increase of 52% from January 2024.
The market share of Chinese brands grew from 2.4% to 3.7% over the same period.
According to Jato while Chinese car brands combined volume in January place them in 12th position in terms of brand rankings for the month.
This would have put them ahead of established brands such as Ford which registered 35,790 units.
Jato said the segment that drove the most growth for Chinese brands was hybrid models (HEVs).
“The imposition of tariffs on Chinese BEVs by the European Commission has sparked some Chinese car manufacturers to focus their efforts on other powertrains, including hybrids, to overcome these. As a result, almost 7,500 HEVs registered in Europe in January were from
“Chinese brands, accounting for 6.1% of the total HEV market. Plug-in hybrid models (PHEVs) made by Chinese brands also experienced year-on-year growth, with 4,035 units registered in January, compared to 1,276 during the same month in 2024,” it added.
Commenting on the overall market decline of -1.9%, Felipe Munoz, Global Analyst at JATO Dynamics, said: “The market saw significant year-on-year growth in December 2024, largely due to the implementation of incentives and last-minute deals towards the end of the year. The removal of these has contributed to the decline in the number of passenger car registrations.”
