VW, Dacia battle to have July's best-seller; Tesla stumbles

The Volkswagen T-Roc is poised to remain ahead of the Dacia Sandero to be July's top-seller in Europe.

The T-Roc small SUV leads Dacia's small hatchback by 1,508 sales, based on preliminary figures from market researcher Dataforce. If it holds on it would be the first time this year that the T-Roc finished the month at No. 1.

Meanwhile, the Renault Clio and VW Golf are in a tight race for third place, with the Clio ahead by just 343 sales, according to data representing 90 percent of sales in the European Union, the EFTA countries and the U.K.

The Clio's sales were up 116 percent while the Golf's had risen 9.4 percent.

There are also very close races for No. 6 and No. 8 on the list of July's top-sellers.

The Ford Puma, helped by an 86 percent sales jump, leads the Peugeot 208 by 362 for sixth place.

Meanwhile, the Skoda Octavia, aided by a 32 percent rise, is ahead of the Toyota Yaris by 68 sales for the No. 8 spot, Dataforce's figures show. That means there could be some changes once all markets have reported their sales data.

Other cars poised to make big sales gain in July are the Fiat Panda (+37 percent), Ford Kuga (+34 percent) and Audi A3 (+24 percent).

The Tesla Model Y, which was June's No. 1 seller and the best-selling model in the first half, slipped to No. 21 in July despite increasing sales more than 500 percent compared with July 2022.

Sales growth at Tesla, which has been offering discounts on the Model Y since January, has not been linear. The premium midsize SUV was Europe's top-seller in February, March, May and June but didn't make the top 10 in January and April.

The big swings mean the Model Y has slipped to No. 2 in the race to be Europe's overall top-seller.

The Sandero leads the Model Y by 131,582 unit sales to 122,404, according to Dataforce. The race is likely to get tighter once markets such as Austria, Denmark and Sweden provide their figures. The Model Y has been a strong seller in all three countries this year.

If the Sandero holds on, it will be the third time it has been Europe's No. 1 seller in the first seven months of this year (its other wins were in January and April). Through July, the Sandero's volume is up 23 percent.

Over the first seven months the biggest winners have included the Model Y (+216 percent), Dacia Jogger (+87 percent), Toyota Aygo (+80 percent), Octavia (+70 percent) and Ford Focus (+58 percent).