Popular electric cars in Europe: demand for affordable zero emissions

The electric car market continues to grow steadily every month. From January to March 2023, around 430,700 electric cars were sold in Europe, according to available figures.

This represents about 13.4% of total car sales for this period, which amounted to 3,220,806 vehicles (including electric cars), according to data from JATO Dynamics .

In Europe, the Tesla Model Y was the best-selling electric car with 71,683 units, which also makes it the most popular "dry" car.

This performance testifies to the growing public interest in more affordable electric cars, as evidenced by the list of the 10 best-selling electric cars, where most models are not very expensive.

Although Tesla took a 21% market share with more than 94,000 cars sold this quarter, the price drop of its two flagship models contributed to this success.

Growing demand for inexpensive electric cars

Generally speaking, cars that rank in the top 10 are considered reasonable in terms of price, despite their cost which can be high. Indeed, most of them have a starting price of less than 45,000 euros, or even around 30,000 euros.

The Volkswagen ID.3 ranks third with 17,316 units sold, despite its starting price starting at 43,000 euros. The Dacia Spring is ranked fifth with 14,066 units sold, despite costing less than 25,000 euros. The Fiat 500 and Peugeot e208 models , with starting prices below 40,000 euros, rank seventh and eighth respectively.

The MG 4 is clearly a major wake-up call for manufacturers, as it managed to position itself in ninth position in the Top 10 car sales in Europe, with 12,720 units sold, thus overtaking the Renault Mégane ( 10,876 units), as well as models from Nissan and Ford .

MG 's success demonstrates how Chinese manufacturers can thrive in the Western market by using a well-established Western brand and offering a competitive product. Indeed, the MG 4 is sold at an average price of around 10,000 euros less than its competitors offering the same performance.

This rapid breakthrough of the MG 4 in Europe is a warning to well-established brands that they need to improve their price-performance ratio and equipment if they don't want to be supplanted.

This trend is also seen with the Lynk & Co , which offers PHEVs, as the Lynk & Co 01 model is the third best-selling plug-in hybrid vehicle in Europe, behind the Volvo XC60 and the Ford Kuga .