The Tesla Model Y has topped Europe’s new car sales charts for the first six months of 2023, marking the first time that a battery electric vehicle (BEV) has taken the top spot over a period of six months.
European sales of the Tesla Model Y has tripled to 125,144 in the first half of 2023, compared to 40,147 in the same period the year before, according to preliminary figures from market researcher Dataforce cited by Automotive News Europe.
In just six months, the Tesla Model Y’s sales performance in 2023 has nearly matched its total figure for the entirety of last year. More impressively, its sales figure for 1H2022 was already entirely eclipsed by its performance in March 2023 alone, when it saw 46,282 units sold.
The Tesla Model Y’s rise to the top is driven by an aggressive price cut for the model in Europe, although it appears that price is not the main contributor to its success; the much more affordable Dacia Sandero and Volkswagen T-Roc only saw 118,883 and 107,249 units sold respectively during the same period, placing them in second and third place.
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Last year’s best-selling model in Europe, the Peugeot 208, meanwhile fell to fifth place, as it experiences a 5.1% drop in sales compared to the same period last year – one of only two models in the top 10 (alongside the Volkswagen Golf) to see a sales deficit.
Together with the Model 3, Tesla’s overall sales in Europe reached 163,987 units in the first six months of 2023, nearly doubling its total in the same period last year. The 85,000-unit increase also represents one-third of the 263,860 units increase of BEV sales in Europe, which were up 45% through the first six months of the year.
The Tesla Model Y only recently made its official debut in Malaysia, with an attractive pricing starting from just RM199,000 for the base RWD variant, sporting a single motor on the rear axle for an output of 347 hp and 420 Nm, translating to a 0-100 km/h sprint time of 6.9 seconds.
With interest for EVs at an all-time high, plus a bullish economic outlook for the automotive sector, it’s likely that the Tesla Model Y in Malaysia will follow the same sales trend as it did in Europe and many markets globally – although, don’t expect it to dethrone Perodua anytime soon, or perhaps ever.
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