- The European market (30 countries = EU + United Kingdom + Switzerland + Norway) for passenger cars declined by 1.0% over the two months to date in 2026 compared to the two months to date in 2025 , to 1,938,121 units compared to 1,958,331.
- By country, we note that only a dozen European countries saw their sales increase over the period, and these are mainly low volume countries, such as the Baltic countries, Malta or Croatia, but we observe the presence of three high volume countries, namely the United Kingdom (+4.8%), Italy (+10.1%) and Spain (+4.6%).
- Unfortunately, these countries do not compensate for the decline in sales in high-volume countries such as France (-11.1%) or Germany (-1.4%) and medium-volume countries such as Belgium (-13.2%) or the Netherlands (-16.7%).
- Furthermore, the collapse of the Norwegian market (-48.1%), the European market with the largest share of battery electric vehicles in Europe, is noteworthy. This is due to a VAT increase on electric vehicles scheduled for January 1, 2026, but announced as early as October 15, 2025. Consequently, there was anticipation of vehicle purchases before the VAT increase, resulting in a sharp drop in sales during the first two months of 2026. This situation is expected to stabilize in the coming months.
- Despite this collapse in the Norwegian market, the market share of BEVs in Europe continued to increase, representing 19.6% of sales in 2 months 2026 compared to 16.9% in 2 months 2025 , a gain of more than two and a half points.
- By carmaker, with the exception of Chinese carmakers, only two non-Chinese carmakers saw their sales increase: Stellantis (+8.2%) after a very poor 2025 and Tesla (+0.9%) , which managed to halt its decline that began last year. Among Chinese carmakers with significant volumes, SAIC saw slight growth (+4.8%), followed by Chery (+223%), BYD (+159%), Leapmotor (+605%), Geely (+42%), and Xpeng (+99%).
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