After years of decline, the midsized car segment is actually up 1% in 2019 to 1.05 million sales, maintaining a 6.7% share of the overall car market. However, if it wasn’t for the thunderous arrival of the Tesla Model 3, the class would be down another 8% again this year.
The all-electric sedan landed in 5th place with over 95,000 sales, of which 30,000 in The Netherlands and 15,700 in Norway, which means these two countries that account for 3.7% of the European car market have taken 48% of Model 3 deliveries thanks to generous subsidies and other perks for electric vehicles. In both countries the Model 3 was the best selling model overall and Tesla was the #2 best selling brand in Norway behind VW and in NL it was #3 behind VW and Opel. Another historic phenomenon in this segment happened in 2019, with the Mercedes-Benz C-Class taking the overall lead from the Volkswagen Passat, and luxury vehicles expanding their share to above 60% of the overall segment, also helped by the Model 3.
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