Diesel savvy Europe is experiencing a decline lately in diesel car registrations that fell from 7.9 million to 6.76 million units representing 43.7 percent of the whole market, the lowest market share in a decade according to JATO Dynamics, a company established in 1984 providing the latest information on vehicles. The European market saw 15.57 million total registrations an increase of 3.1 percent compared to 2016.
The market trend is changing as consumers are tilting toward gasoline-run cars with 760,000 units registered last year. Despite a decline in diesel car adoption, the SUV and crossover market is booming in Europe. A record 4.56 million vehicles were registered in 2017 showing growth of 19.5 percent compared to 3.81 million registrations in 2016. Since 2007, the total market of SUVs has increased by 10 percent from a previous 8.5 percent.
The German auto brand Volkswagen remained the most popular brand in Europe with 1.7 million units registered. Renault took the second place with over 1.1 million registrations and Ford was in the third spot with 1.05 million. The 2017 best selling car in Europe was the Volkswagen Golf with 483,105 registrations and the best SUV for the second consecutive year was Nissan Qashqai.