European sales of large cars were down 46% in the first half of 2020, to just over 106,000 deliveries. This means the segment loses ground on the overall market again and now accounts for just 2.1% of the total European car market, down from 2.4% in the first half of 2019 and 2.3% for the full year 2019. The entire top-7, which accounts for 94% of the segment’s sales, drops by 43% or more and only one single model manages to keep its decline limited to single digits.
The Mercedes-Benz E-Class maintains its top spot and loses just 0.6 percentage points of share despite an upcoming major facelift for the model. Its nearest rival BMW 5-Series gains 1.4 percentage points of share as its sales are “just” 43% lower than last year, making it one of the best performing models in the class so far this year. However, the 5-Series was outsold by the Audi A6 in Q2, closing the gap to the #2 spot to 1,800 sales. The Volvo S90/V90 is a distant best of the rest, and at -43% also one of the least hurt so far this year. The Audi A7 keeps its share stable but the gap behind to the Tesla Model S is cut in half in Q2 when the electric sedan outsold the A7 by 160 deliveries. The Mercedes-Benz CLS, Jaguar XF and BMW 6-Series are the three biggest losers of the segment, all losing more than 64% of their sales of last year. For the XF and still relatively fresh CLS this is more worrying than for the 6-Series as the latter is now down to just the Gran Turismo version as the coupe and Gran Coupe have been replaced by the larger and more expensive 8-Series. The Lexus ES also passes the XF and 6-Series thanks to being the best performer of the class and the only nameplate to be down by just single digits this year.
We welcome the Polestar 1 to the ranking with the first 37 registrations for the Swedish plug-in hybrid coupe.
| Large car segment | 2020-H1 | 2019-H1 | Change | 2020 share | 2019 share | 2020-Q2 | |
| 1 | Mercedes-Benz E-Class | 30.039 | 56.424 | -47% | 28,3% | 28,9% | 11.349 |
| 2 | BMW 5-series | 27.259 | 47.589 | -43% | 25,7% | 24,3% | 9.554 |
| 3 | Audi A6 / S6 / RS6 / Allroad | 25.413 | 45.533 | -44% | 24,0% | 23,3% | 10.509 |
| 4 | Volvo S90/V90 | 12.039 | 21.201 | -43% | 11,4% | 10,8% | 5.435 |
| 5 | Audi A7 / S7 / RS7 | 2.529 | 4.603 | -45% | 2,4% | 2,4% | 904 |
| 6 | Tesla Model S | 2.461 | 4.370 | -44% | 2,3% | 2,2% | 1.065 |
| 7 | Mercedes-Benz CLS | 1.896 | 5.334 | -64% | 1,8% | 2,7% | 745 |
| 8 | Lexus ES | 1.754 | 1.766 | -1% | 1,7% | 0,9% | 645 |
| 9 | Jaguar XF | 1.225 | 4.234 | -71% | 1,2% | 2,2% | 325 |
| 10 | BMW 6-series | 1.041 | 3.365 | -69% | 1,0% | 1,7% | 381 |
| 11 | Maserati Ghibli | 365 | 981 | -63% | 0,3% | 0,5% | 149 |
| 12 | Polestar 1 | 37 | 0 | #DIV/0! | 0,0% | 0,0% | 18 |
| 13 | Infiniti Q70 | 4 | 15 | -73% | 0,0% | 0,0% | 1 |
| 14 | Lexus GS | 1 | 124 | -99% | 0,0% | 0,1% | 0 |
| 15 | Hyundai Genesis | 0 | 8 | -100% | 0,0% | 0,0% | 0 |
| Segment total | 106.063 | 195.547 | -46% |
Car sales statistics are from the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.
Sources: Manufacturers, ANDC, JATO Dynamics.