Chinese Carmakers Keep Gaining Ground in Europe as Monthly Sales Surge

By Mauro Orru

Chinese carmakers logged strong growth in European sales once again last month, making strides in winning over drivers on the continent as domestic rivals struggle to remain competitive.

New-car registrations for BYD models, a reflection of sales, more than doubled on year last month to 26,007 units across the European Union, the U.K., Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, an industry body also known as ACEA.

BYD and other Chinese automakers have witnessed substantial growth in Europe in recent years thanks to their relatively cheap lineups of vehicles that are enticing local drivers and inflicting pain on domestic carmakers.

SAIC Motor's registrations jumped 32% to 21,214 units, while Leapmotor logged a more than threefold increase to 7,630 vehicles. In contrast, Germany's Volkswagen recorded a 3.6% decline in sales to 210,818 units, while Renault's slumped 4.4% to 71,906 vehicles.

While August tends to be a slow month for car registrations in Europe since many dealerships close for the summer holidays, the schism in the registration rate for Chinese and domestic carmakers shows that BYD and its peers keep gaining ground even though European auto groups sold many more vehicles in absolute numbers.

Many European carmakers have had to review their lineups and take hefty impairment charges in recent years, with Chinese competition often featuring as one of the main reasons.

Last week, Volkswagen slashed a key profitability target for the year after flagging roughly $11.5 billion of impairment charges linked to its stake in Porsche AG, tough trading conditions and restructuring efforts.

The guidance cut came weeks after Volkswagen's supervisory board approved a plan to double job cuts to 100,000 in a bid to remain competitive at a time when the auto sector struggles with U.S. tariffs, rising manufacturing costs and stiff competition from Chinese rivals.

Porsche AG also said at the end of July that it would cut 5,000 jobs. The sports-car maker was hit by a collapse in sales in China, U.S. tariffs and a premature bet on electric vehicles. Several EV makers have had to scale back production in recent years as they struggled to convince drivers to transition to electric.

The market for battery-electric vehicles grew 52% in Europe last month. Registrations of hybrid-electric cars gained 3.4%, while plug-in-hybrid models were up 13.5%.

Elon Musk's Tesla logged 4% growth in August registrations to 15,430 units across the continent, a slowdown from double-digit growth in recent months. It fared better in the EU alone, with growth of nearly 53%.

ACEA said monthly passenger-car registrations increased 5.3% in Europe as a whole and 4.5% in the EU, with sales up 2.6% in Germany, 7.4% in France and 3.2% in Italy.

Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 24, 2026 00:14 ET (04:14 GMT)