SUVs dominate the passenger car market. The love for these pseudo-off-road vehicles even goes so far that they bring the small car segment out of the woods all over Europe.
For years, compact sedans topped the European sales charts alone. That has now come to an end – the small car has caught up with the compact class. For the first time both segments had the same market share of around 35 percent, as determined by the consulting agency Inovev than 30 percentage points. In addition to the shrinking range in the even smaller subcompact segment, the reasons also include the growing selection of mini-SUVs. These appeal to a similar clientele as classic compact sedans. In terms of length and width, they are mostly compact class format, but based on a subcompact basis. Your advantage: they are higher and have a correspondingly elevated seating position. Developments at the lower end of the automotive segment also mean that there are fewer and fewer cars for small wallets. Small cars are becoming increasingly unprofitable for manufacturers because the expensive drive and emission control technology cannot be converted into low purchase prices. Toyota is an exception: the Japanese are bringing a real small car onto the market with the Aygo X, but it is based on the larger Yaris based and with a list price of almost 15,000 euros makes the price problem quite clear.
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