Sales of large MPVs in Europe continue to drop to record lows in the first half of 2021. In a market up 26%, MPV sales are down 19% on the first half of 2020, after a 43% decline in the full year. And compared to the first six months of 2019, large MPV sales are down 64% in an overall market down 22%. As a result, the share of the large MPV segment falls from 0.5% in the first six months of 2020 to 0.3% now.
Surprisingly, there’s a new leader on top of the ranking as the Volkswagen Sharan jumps from the #3 spot in 2020 and Q1 of 2021 to a dominant first place with 31.2% share of the segment. Its 4,372 deliveries in Q2 correspond to a share of 41% and is more than double the figure of its nearest rival and almost three times its own figure in Q1. The Sharan started the year with a 55% drop in sales in the first quarter, but after the second quarter the nameplate is already back in the black with sales up 5% on last year. Considering over 3,000 of these deliveries took place in April, this must either be a very large fleet deal for VW or self-registrations of unsold cars for some kind of reason. The peak is too high to be explained by the end of production of the Sharan’s clone Seat Alhambra. The latter is down 55% and the worst performing nameplate in the class. It has now officially been killed in favor of the Seat Tarraco 7-seat crossover. The Ford S-Max is knocked down into 2nd place with sales down 16% on last year, while its sibling model Ford Galaxy is down just 6% and closing in on the #4 spot. The Renault Espace is the best performing model in the segment with sales up 29% but that came from such a low base that the French nameplate that invented the class in the 1980s is still a slow seller at 300 deliveries per month.
| Large MPV segment | 2021-H1 | 2020-H1 | Change | 2021 share | 2020 share | |
| 1 | Volkswagen Sharan | 5.942 | 5.686 | 5% | 31,2% | 24,2% |
| 2 | Ford S-Max | 4.891 | 5.839 | -16% | 25,7% | 24,8% |
| 3 | Seat Alhambra | 3.271 | 7.272 | -55% | 17,2% | 30,9% |
| 4 | Ford Galaxy | 3.101 | 3.312 | -6% | 16,3% | 14,1% |
| 5 | Renault Espace | 1.826 | 1.421 | 29% | 9,6% | 6,0% |
| Segment total | 19.031 | 23.534 | -19% |
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.