Driving By Numbers: 5 Car brands Europeans love that Canadians don't

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On one side of the pond, there are densely populated cities, sprawling networks supporting mass transit, sky-high fuel prices, and tax systems set up to punish big polluters.

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On the other side of the pond – namely, right here at home – there are wide open spaces, limited interconnected public transportation systems, reasonably affordable fuel prices, and registration costs that do little to de-incentivize the acquisition of gigantic pickup trucks.

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Driving By Numbers: 5 Car brands Europeans love that Canadians don't Back to video

At roughly eight times the size, Europe’s automobile market is obviously different from Canada’s in a number of meaningful ways. Broadly speaking, the continent is systematically arranged to favour vehicles with smaller engines, and therefore smaller vehicles overall. As a result, top sellers aren’t vehicles such as the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V, let alone the Ford F-Series and Chevrolet Silverado. Instead, the Volkswagen Golf and smaller Kia Rio-sized vehicles such as the Renault Clio and Peugeot 208 are Europe’s high-volume vehicles.

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But there’s another way to spot the differences between the Canadian and European markets: via a brand-by-brand approach. Europeans are far more likely, for example, to purchase vehicles built by – you guessed it – European brands. They’re also far more likely to acquire vehicles from traditionally premium brands, even if some of those vehicles (such as the Audi A1) are less costly than a Ford Focus or Hyundai Kona.

Europe’s affection for Japanese-branded vehicles doesn’t run nearly as deep as it does here in Canada, either. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan combine to own just 9 percent of the European new vehicle market, compared with 24 percent of the Canadian market. Moreover, the general distaste our friends on the other side of the Atlantic have for traditional Detroit machinery is well chronicled — don’t expect to see Buicks lined up at a Tim Hortons drive-thru in Paris, or Lincoln Navigators cruising through Picadilly Circus.

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Setting aside the brands that have no presence in one market or another – Peugeot, Citroën, Dodge, and GMC among many others – we compiled acres of data to determine which popular brands in Europe fail to garner the same attention in Canada. And for an even clearer picture, which auto brands perform well in Canada but fail to capture the hearts of Germans, Spaniards, Italians, Swedes, Britons, and the inhabitants of dozens of other European markets.

Some of the results aren’t surprising. The degree to which the brands under and over-perform, however, might be a bit of a shocker.

Europe

Mini

BMW’s British small car brand isn’t a major mover in Europe, but it’s not the niche player there that it is in Canada. At 1.5 percent, Mini’s European market share in 2021 is 650-percent stronger than the inconsequential share Mini manages in Canada, where first-quarter sales totalled only 863 units. In Canada, Mercedes-Benz sells nearly seven times more SUVs than Mini sells vehicles in total. In Europe, on the other hand, Mini outsells Mazda. Easily.

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Volvo

Volvo is growing fast in Canada. First-quarter market share, at 0.55 percent, is way up from the 0.31 percent Volvo managed only half a decade ago. But Volvo remains a lower-tier player in Canada’s relatively small premium market. In Europe, Volvo’s market share is 440-percent stronger, at 2.7 percent. Volvo’s Swedish home market plays a significant role in that — Sweden’s three best-selling vehicles are all Volvos.

BMW

Think BMW’s product range in Canada is expansive? You’re not wrong. But in Europe, BMW thinks even bigger . Or perhaps we should say, smaller . With vehicles like the 1 Series (no, we don’t mean the 2 Series that used to be a 1 Series) plus mini-MPVs like the 2 Series Active Tourer and wagon variants no longer offered here, BMW’s European lineup is massive. BMW owns 5.9 percent of the European market, 269 percent stronger than its Canadian share.

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Volkswagen

Three of the five brands that Europe favours in such an extreme way are premium marques; another is a niche small car brand that’s clearly priced as a premium line in Canada. Volkswagen, on the other hand, is a mass-market brand. It’s Europe’s top-selling brand, with 451,798 sales in 2021’s first four months. That’s 11 percent market share, 267-percent stronger than the 3 percent Volkswagen manages in Canada. A comparatively small Canadian lineup doesn’t help. Volkswagen believes vehicles such as the Up, Polo, Golf, T-Cross, T-Roc, short-wheelbase Tiguan, Touareg, Touran, Sharan, and Passat and Arteon wagons would not improve the brand’s North American fortunes.

Audi

Volkswagen’s high-volume upmarket brand is Europe’s eighth-best-selling auto brand. That means Audi easily outsells brands such as Hyundai and Kia, plus Mazda and Nissan and Honda. In the U.K., Audi ranks fifth overall, outselling the giant known as Toyota by a 17-percent margin. Overall, Audi owns 5.2 percent of the European market, more than triple the brand’s Canadian market share.

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Canada

Honda

Honda is typically one of Canada’s top four brands. Right here in Canada, Honda builds Canada’s No. 2 SUV and the 23-time best-selling car, the CR-V and Civic, respectively. Honda owns just a tick under 7 percent of the Canadian market. Yet in Europe, the brand is a non-factor, with only 19,415 sales in 2021’s first four months. In a market that’s around an eighth the size, Honda Canada sold nearly 27,000 vehicles in 2021’s first three months. The brand’s Canadian market share is 1,280-percent stronger than Honda’s measly European effort.

Jeep

Despite its modest European market share, Jeep’s endurance is beginning to pay off. The brand sells nearly as many vehicles in Europe as it does in Canada. Well, not quite. But it’s getting there. Jeep’s Canadian market share now stands at 3.9 percent, 254-percent stronger than the 1.1-percent European effort. Canada’s Jeep volume rose 33-percent to 14,955 units in Q1.

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Mazda

Canada’s capacity to love Mazda is already widely known. Whilst our American neighbours largely ignore Mazda and the brand scratches and claws for less than 2 percent of the market, Mazda’s Canadian market share is almost double that. The story is exaggerated in Europe, where Mazda sold only 47,788 vehicles in 2021’s first four months. That’s fewer than Land Rover and Mini managed. Mazda’s Canadian market share is 225-percent stronger.

Lexus

When Europeans think luxury, they think of European luxury badges. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi, primarily, with a dose of Volvo, Land Rover, and Porsche thrown in for good measure. In Europe, you see, Lexus sells at roughly the same level as Jaguar. In Canada, on the other hand, Lexus sells nine vehicles for every one Jaguar. Lexus’s Canadian market share, at 1.3 percent, is 225-percent stronger than its European trickle.

Ford

We can’t ignore the fact that Ford truly does sell a lot of vehicles in Europe: over 200,000 in 2021’s first four months, in fact. In the U.K., Ford actually battles Volkswagen for top spot among brands. Nevertheless, Ford owns just 5.1 percent of the overall European market, small potatoes compared to the 13.7 percent of the Canadian market owned by the Blue Oval, Canada’s No. 1 brand. The F-Series truck family, on its own, produces nearly 8 percent of Canadian auto sales. Europe, it’s clear, simply does not resemble the Canadian market in any way.