Turns out, Europeans love big ol’ SUVs as much as Americans do

Regulators hate them, saying all the popularity of massive, heavy SUVs runs counter to environmental targets. Paris even slapped some hefty fines on SUVs parking in the city. But European consumers are showing nothing but love for the SUV, in all shapes and sizes. In a new milestone, SUV sales took the market lead at 51%.

Top sellers last year were (no surprise) the seven-seater, 4,400-pound Tesla Model Y and Volkswagen’s T-Roc, which accounted for more than half of all sales in Europe for the first time, reports Automotive News Europe.

Sales of SUVs grew 19% last year to 6.63 million, according to market research Dataforce. The Tesla Model Y officially took the crown as Europe’s best-selling car overall for 2023, making it the first electric vehicle ever to do so.

For the first time, SUVs overtook Europe’s traditional hatchback and wagon body styles. Long gone, too, are the days when the VW Golf ruled the roost for almost 15 years. For minicars, a segment that sold close to a million vehicles a decade ago, last year saw the sales of 698,858 minicars in Europe. For battery-electric mini-cars, Fiat’s 500e was the best seller – a car the brand is hoping to successfully launch this year in the US. Still, lots of brands have since abandoned minicars altogether, or have bumped up the size for a larger, bulkier “minicar.”

Small SUVs, however, are on the rise, seeing nearly 2.2 million units last year, and compact SUVs selling 1.9 million, according to Dataforce. But the biggest growth came from the premium segment.

EVs were a big driver of sales in the midsize segment, with 50% of the market, according to the data. Battery-electric SUVs accounted for 48% of all premium midsize SUV sales, with the Model Y leading the pack. For mass-market midsize SUVs, Volkswagen ID4 took the lead.

For small SUVs, however, electric vehicle sales weren’t as strong, with only 1.7% of compact SUVs sold in 2023 featuring a battery-driven powertrain, according to the data. For small cars, only 5.4% of sales were electric.

But SUVs took the lead even in the highest-priced performance segment, reports Automotive News Europe, with plug-in hybrid BMW XM taking first place with 3,142 sales, outselling the Lamborghini Urus and Bentley Bentayga.

Electrek’s Take

Where is the Citroen Ami when you need it? This is going in the wrong direction, and surely Europe doesn’t need a vehicle like this one on its city streets – or even in villages where the urban planners designed the roads a few hundred years ago. To adjust for a trend of bigger and bigger cars, a lot of infrastructure will need to change – bigger parking spaces, constructing sidewalks where there are none, widening roads to adapt to two-way traffic on one narrow road, pushing bike lanes farther over to make room for vehicle bulk. Perhaps more cities will go in the direction of Paris, which voted to triple parking fees for SUVs, to help push back the presence of bigger vehicles in cities at least. Amsterdam, London, and Copenhagen could be next.

Still, there is hope yet for small EVs to come out ahead this year, with a slew of new affordable models coming out, including Renault’s electric Twingo and Citroën’s ë-C3, not to mention new models coming from BYD and SAIC’s MG Motors. Hyundai announced its new mini-SUV Casper (which does look pretty mini) would be arriving this year priced at €20,000. Several new models are targeting a starting price of €25,000 or less, including the Renault 5, Twingo, and the BEV Fiat Panda, so maybe that could help more value-minded drivers ditch ICE or lower-priced SUVs like the ubiquitous Dacia Duster and buy a smaller car.