New number 1 in Europe: VW Golf dethroned
The VW Golf is no longer Europe’s most popular car – a rival has knocked it out of first place. Not for the last time, experts say. In any case, the Golf has no future.
Change at the top of the table: The VW Golf is no longer Europe’s number 1. In the first quarter of the year, the Peugeot 208 replaced it as the best-selling car. This is shown by an evaluation by the consulting agency Inovev.
According to this, the small car from France was registered exactly 50,609 times from the beginning of January to the end of March. The Golf, on the other hand, found only 44,659 new owners.
What both have in common: Compared to the first quarter of 2021, they have to accept heavy losses. At the Peugeot, the number of new registrations fell by 15 percent, at the Golf even by 18.3 percent.
Third place: the Dacia Sandero with 43,196 new registrations.
The top ten at a glance
1 Peugeot 208
2 Volkswagen Golfs
3 Dacia Sandero
4 Peugeot 2008
5 Citroën C3
6 Opel Corsa
7 Ford Cougar
8 Renault Clio
9 Toyota Yaris
10 Volkswagen Tiguan
The top ten alone have a combined market share of 15 percent.
Why the Golf is a discontinued model
For the Golf – built around 35 million times over eight generations – it is not the first time that it has lost its top spot. And it won’t be the last time either. Experts are even convinced that in a few years it will no longer appear in the ranking at all. There are a few reasons for this:
Since the beginning of 2020, a limit of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer has applied throughout the EU for newly registered cars. Every gram over that entails a hefty fine. And most Golf models exceed this limit – which will even be around 60 grams in 2030.
This limit cannot be met with internal combustion engines. But the Golf stands on a platform on which VW only builds petrol and diesel engines. For purely electric cars, on the other hand, there is a new, separate platform. That is the simple reason why the Golf 8 does not only come with an electric motor. And that is also the explanation why experts have long been convinced: the current Golf is the last.
It is not for nothing that VW is currently heavily advertising its new electric cars such as the ID.3. Because even if the Golf at some point no longer
