New car sales in Switzerland 2023: Tesla regains leadership

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For decades, nothing has surpassed the VW Golf: the “bestseller forever” topped the Swiss car sales charts 41 times in a row between 1975 and 2016. Then came the corporate rival Skoda Octavia, which dethroned the Golf in 2017 and subsequently claimed the title of Switzerland’s best-selling car three more times. And since 2021, electric car pioneer Tesla has been at the top of the preferred list among Swiss car buyers.

First, the compact Model 3 topped the sales record in 2021, followed last year by the technically related Model Y. The crossover managed to top the Swiss new car statistics once again in 2023. Model Y, with 6,173 units sold, not only significantly exceeded the registration figures for 2022, when 4,928 such models were registered. In 2023, Tesla also left the competition much further behind than a year ago: The electric Skoda Enyaq ranks second in the sales record with 5,159 registrations, with the next Skoda Octavia in third place (4,943 registrations). ). The VW Golf barely cracked the top 10 with 3,526 sales.

Swiss cars bestsellers 2023:

VW remains the most popular car brand

It is also surprising to look at the registration numbers by brands: the other three existing Tesla models are 3, S and Despite this, Tesla managed to enter the top 10 in brand statistics again, as in 2022, and ranked 9th with a total of 8,757 sales.

However, the most popular brand among Swiss car buyers is still VW, and by a large margin. The German industrial giant will have 28,350 new registrations in Switzerland in 2023. Just like last year, BMW ranked second with 21,290 people, while Skoda caused another surprise with its third place. The Czech VW subsidiary made its first appearance on the podium with sales of 21,160, with the two German premium brands Audi (20,313) and Mercedes (19,971) occupying 4th and 5th places. This was followed by Toyota (13,291) and Seat and its sports subsidiary. Cupra (11,958 total), Ford (10,029) and Renault (8,584) in 10th place.

Difficult car market in 2023

According to the Swiss Automobile Importers Association, 252,214 passenger cars were newly registered last year. This means an increase of 11.6 percent compared to 2022. However, the 2023 auto year remains well below the long-term pre-pandemic level of around 300,000 new registrations. Auto Switzerland media spokesman Christoph Wolnik concludes for the year: “Private customers in particular have been very reluctant to buy cars in the last twelve months.” “The cloudy economic outlook and rising cost of living likely played a major role here. After all, purchasing a vehicle for private residences is the biggest investment made after an apartment.” However, there is something positive to say about plug-in vehicles (electric cars and plug-in hybrids) that can be charged with electricity: they reached a record market share of 30.1 percent in 2023; 20.9 percent of these are fully electric.

Source: Blick