The Dacia Sandero was Europe’s best-selling car in the first half of 2024, pushing the Volkswagen Golf into second place and the Renault Clio into third, while the Tesla Model Y – last year’s global best-seller – languished in eighth.

The Romanian crossover, which starts from as little as €11,500/€79 a month in Germany (from £13,795 in the UK), racked up 143,596 sales between 1 January and 30 June. That’s a rise of 16% compared with the same period in 2023.

This is the first time the Sandero has held top spot – it placed second in 2022 and 2023 – despite being Europe’s best-selling private car since 2017, which shows the power of fleet sales that have been felt by other models.  

Sales of the second-placed Golf, which was renewed earlier this year, rose 43% to 125,993, closely followed by the Clio (114,623, up 15%), the Volkswagen T-Roc (111,381, no change) and fifth-placed Peugeot 208 (107,097, up 1%).