The Dacia Sandero has been the best-selling car in Spain in 2023. For the second time in history, the Romanian manufacturer's low-cost model has managed to lead the sales ranking of passenger cars and SUVs in our country in a year where Toyota revalidates the first place achieved in 2022 as the brand with the highest number of registered passenger cars.
The data provided by the associations of manufacturers (Anfac), dealers (Faconauto) and sellers (Ganvam) reveal a notable increase in registrations compared to the previous year. After accounting for the 81,772 units sold in December, the total number of copies delivered in 2023 was 949,359, 16.7% more than the previous year, falling short of 950,000 sales and without crossing the psychological barrier of one million deliveries.
“The balance we can make of the year 2023 in the automotive sector is that it has been better than expected, but clearly insufficient as it is still far from the pre-pandemic figures,” says Raúl Morales, communication director of Faconauto, referring to the years in which that exceeded one million deliveries. In 2019, the last year before the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, 1.25 million units were registered.
It was precisely in 2020, the first year marked by the pandemic, when the Dacia Sandero was crowned for the first time as the best-selling car in Spain. The low-cost model of the Renault Group brand has once again repeated first place in 2023 after registering 27,951 units throughout the year, which represents an increase of 34.5% compared to 2022.
The Dacia Sandero, with a starting price of 13,190 euros (14,720 for the Stepway version), has been the market leader throughout the year, despite competition in recent months from the MG ZS, a larger and better Chinese urban SUV. equipped, which was the best-selling model in three of the last five months of the year, including December.
In the last month of 2023, MG delivered 2,563 units of the ZS model, allowing it to finish the year in fourth position in the annual ranking, with 19,818 units, a growth of 263.2%. Between the Dacia Sandero and the MG ZS, the Seat Arona is in second position, with 21,639 units (23.9%), and the Toyota Corolla, which closes the top 3 of the total with 19,845 units (16.7%).
In fifth place is the Peugeot 2008 (19,433 units; 24.5%), followed by the Hyundai Tucson (19,097 units), the Toyota C-HR (18,478 units), the Kia Sportage (18,359 units), the Volkswagen T- Roc (17,238 units) and the Seat Ibiza (16,644 units).
Regarding the brands that placed the most cars on the market in 2023, Toyota repeats as the manufacturer with the highest number of sales. The Japanese company registered a total of 79,883 examples between January and December, 8.7% more than the previous year, surpassing its closest pursuer, the South Korean brand Kia, by more than 10,000 units, which closed the year in second position. , with 66,245 units and a growth of 4.6%. The podium is closed by Volkswagen, with 63,871 registered cars and a growth of 4.6% in 2023.
The rise of the German manufacturer to third place prevents Hyundai from completing a podium that, as in 2022, will be dominated by three Asian brands. The decline in sales of the Hyundai Tucson, which was then the best-selling model, partly explains the fall of the Japanese company to fourth place on the podium, with 58,874 units. Seat occupies fifth place in the ranking of the most popular brands with a total of 58,586 deliveries, 19.1% more than in the previous year.
In the last month of the year, Toyota was also the best-selling brand, with 6,323 units, 14.8% more, followed by Renault (6,105 units; 19%), Hyundai (5,676 units; 27.9%), Volkswagen ( 5,450 units; -3.2%) and Kia, which closes the list of the five most popular brands of the month with 4,958 units, 7.5% less.
Regarding propulsion systems, diesel vehicles continue to decline. Only 12.5% of the new vehicles registered in 2023 were powered by diesel. Gasoline engines enjoy better commercial health and were the option chosen by 40.8% of consumers. The rest corresponded to passenger cars and SUVs belonging to the electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, fuel cell or gas (CNG, LNG or LPG) car segment.
Registrations of electrified vehicles (one hundred percent electric and plug-in hybrids) have risen by 38.6% in 2023, reaching 139,185 units, in line with the forecasts made by the sector, which however sees the sales rate as insufficient to meet the objectives set in the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC). This roadmap aims for 5.5 million electrified vehicles to circulate in 2030, compared to the current 465,000.
