Britain is such a weird car market, especially now that it’s not part of the European Union. Last year, just shy of 2 million cars were sold in the United Kingdom, which makes it a little bigger than the State of California in terms of sales. Buyers there like smaller cars, fleet sales make up a way higher percentage of total sales, and the steering wheels are on the wrong side. Also, the “fastest selling used car” is the rare vehicle that takes up almost no space in my brain. And I have a brain filled with lots of thoughts about the Daewoo Leganza.
It’s Friday, and The Morning Dump is going to take a much-needed break from any talk about the President, Tesla, or tariffs. All of that news is important, of course, but there doesn’t seem to be any resolution to any of it that anyone can offer at the moment, so let’s take a breather.
We’ll start in Britain, where a Vauxhall is looking to usurp some familiar players, then transition to Germany, where two major automakers are reportedly abandoning their collective mobility dreams. While we’re in Europe, why is it that some Chinese automakers are floundering there while most EV brands are doing quite well? Tari… oh. Ok, so we’ll talk about European tariffs, just not American ones.
And, finally, it wouldn’t be a Friday here without news regarding the world’s most important automaker: Škoda!
It’s A Good Year For The (Used) Vauxhalls
I was looking through the British press trades this morning and I saw that Auto Trader is tracking the Vauxhall Grandland as the “fastest selling” used car so far this year. This didn’t immediately land with me, and my eyes quickly darted over to the Škoda news like Garfield when he sees a lasagna.
Then I thought: Can I even picture a Vauxhall Grandland? I know roughly 9 million cars. I don’t know every car that’s ever existed, but I’ve gotta be in like the 99.8th percentile for car-knowing. I can’t even recall the fastest-selling used car in a place I’ve visited three times in the last couple of years?
Oh, right. Let’s start with what Vauxhall is. The laziest badge engineering in the world is Vauxhall, which is the British version of Opel, which was the German version of GM for a while, and has now been voted “Most Forgotten About Stellantis Brand And, Yes, We’re Including Leapmotor And Maserati.” The Grandland is in its second generation and is now on the same Stellantis STLA Medium platform that underpins a bunch of Peugeots and, in the United States, the next Jeep Compass.
With Vauxhalls, the company mostly just stamps a new badge on the car, in this case not even attempting to rename the car, although I guess Grandland sounds more English than German. Still, there’s no stiff-upper-lip spoiler or anything. The latest version of this car hasn’t even been for sale for that long, but it’s in that compact crossover segment that British people love. Last year, the best-selling cars, according to industry group SMMT, were the Ford Puma, Kia Sportage, Nissan Qashqai, and Nissan Juke. All are variants on the small or even-smaller SUV.
What does fastest-selling mean? From Auto Trader:
Of all the used cars on sale, the Vauxhall Grandland is currently leading the pack when it comes to speed of sale. Under one-year-old petrol-hybrid versions of the venerable SUV are currently selling in just seven and a half days on average in March. This is closely followed by another petrol-hybrid SUV with the one-year-old Mercedes-Benz GLC shifting off retailers’ forecourts just in eight and a half days. The top three is rounded off by the one-year-old petrol version of the Jeep Avenger which took on average eleven days to exchange hands between retailers and buyers.
People like hybrids. Not a big shock.
Wait! I think I drove a Grandland. Technically, the Opel Grandland X, because I was in France (on the left):
There’s the car I rented, I think, next to a Lynk & Co. It was fine? We did put a few gallons of race fuel in it, and it was way faster. Also, I was at Le Mans, so I got to drive it around parts of the track as fast as I could get away with before the Maréchaussée noticed and chased me out of the country.
I believe the car Auto Trader is referring to is the outgoing, facelifted hybrid and not the new one. This doesn’t make a big difference as I can remember none of them.
Whatever Happened To Peace, Love, And Mobility?
After the 1910s, basically the coolest person you could be if you weren’t attractive enough to be an actor or talented enough to be a rock star was the CEO of a big manufacturer, especially of cars. It was cutting-edge to be the leader of a car company, as bigger and fancier automobiles represented technological innovation, especially in bombed-out Europe or Japan or wherever.
Steve Jobs changed this, and suddenly it was old-fashioned to make cars. No one wants to be old-fashioned, so we’ve been on this seemingly never-ending treadmill of “new” buzzwords that will revolutionize cars. We’re in the days of AI, which has surpassed software-defined vehicles. Total electrification is also a thing of the past. Before all of this, though, was mobility.
Automakers loved talking about how they weren’t carmakers, they were mobility companies, and they were going to do a way better job of taxis than Uber, and a way better job of scooters than Lime. That mostly didn’t happen. While all of the above technology is important, none of it has replaced making cars as the main thing these companies do.
Here’s a great paragraph full of this nonsense from Manager Magazin that helps give my ranting some context:
More than “just” building cars. Dieter Zetsche (71) and Harald Krüger (59) wanted to prove they could do it. But both automakers had burned through a lot of money with car sharing and other ventures. Together, everything was supposed to be better: In 2019, the then heads of Mercedes-Benz and BMW combined their first experiments with mobility services.
Under the umbrella of the newly founded joint venture Your Now, the Bavarians and the Swabians brought together their subsidiaries for car sharing (Sharenow), for arranging taxis (Freenow) and other means of transport (Reachnow), for finding electric charging stations (Chargenow) or for finding open parking spaces (Parknow).
Today, very little of it remains. And soon, Your Now could be history: BMW and Mercedes are close to selling the last remaining company, Freenow. As manager magazin has learned from well-informed sources, there’s already a favorite for the takeover: the American taxi service Lyft wants to buy Freenow. Neither BMW nor Mercedes wanted to comment, and Lyft did not respond to a request for comment.
Your Now, Sharenow, Freenow, Chargenow, Reachnow, Parknow. LOL.
Chinese Automakers Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down In Europe
Sometimes tariffs do work, as Chinese automakers in Europe are finding out. EVs sold by Chinese-owned brands just had their worst month in Europe in a couple of years. In particular, MG, which has been hit with huge tariffs by the EU, saw a big drop on the continent. By comparison, Leapmotor, which builds its vehicles in the EU and thus avoids tariffs, saw sales go up.
The biggest winner was probably BYD, which is now the biggest Chinese brand in Europe and also didn’t have as huge a levy placed on its cars (and is also building out production capacity in Europe).
One key reason for BYD’s success has been its wide lineup covering the mainstream and premium segments, said Felipe Munoz, senior analyst at Jato.
“This explains why it has been able to increase its volumes in both the wealthier northern Europe and less-wealthy south,” Munoz said.
BYD is rolling out the affordable and popular Atto 2 compact sport utility vehicle across Europe, giving the region another fresh model.
In aggregate, Chinese brands outsold Tesla in European markets including Germany and Italy in February, Munoz said. That may be partly due to the US carmaker’s aging lineup.
And thus ends my talking about Tesla or tariffs for the morning,
The Angles Wanna Drive My Green Škoda Elroq vRS
I can’t remember the Vauxhall Grandland, a vehicle I’ve driven, but I will happily talk about the compact electric Škoda Elroq. It’s getting a vRS version, which is the sporty one, and it’ll get a sweet Hyper Green paint.
It’ll be unveiled next month at Milan Design Week, according to the automaker:
Following its digital unveiling, the sportiest version of the all-electric compact SUV will make its public exhibition debut in Italy at Milan Design Week 2025 in the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea gallery in the Porta Venezia Design District. The exhibition, open to visitors from 8 to 13 April, will feature the Elroq vRS as the centrepiece of an immersive pathway, aligning with Škoda’s Be More Elroq campaign. To mark the 130th anniversary of the founding of the Mladá Boleslav car manufacturer, the official unveiling of Botas sneakers based on Škoda Modern Solid design principles will also take place during the exhibition. These sneakers were created in collaboration with the Škoda Auto design team. One of the three planned models will be worn by members of the Škoda organizational team during the event.
Cool.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Laura Nyro week comes to an end with the voice of Nyro herself and not one of the many artists, like Elvis Costello, that she influenced. I’ve gone back and forth all week about which song I’d use, though I suspected it would be off of Eli And The Thirteenth Confession. If you’re digging the week, I think you should just go listen to the whole album, but “Sweet Blindness” is a good place to start. It has all the hallmarks, including that jaunty piano, wild swings of tempo, and her ability to jump octaves like it ain’t no thing.
The Big Question
Name some cars you always forget exist.
Top photo: Vauxhall
Is car Yoda drives.
I wouldn’t have remembered the Daewoo Lanos except there was one on my usual walk paths.
Everyday, he writes the blog.
Vauxhall should rebrand the Grandland as the Greenland. Then maybe Americans would want it.
Many of the Korean near-luxury models in the US seem to have faded from (my) memory quickly: Hyundai Azera, Kia K900, Daewoo Leganza.
I recently was given a Vauxhall Mokka to drive.
It was miserable; I don’t want to repeat the experience.
I haven’t known what a Vauxhall is for about twenty years, and I’m British. Absolutely no brand identity whatsoever. No wonder GM dumped them.
I had a second-gen Vauxhall Astra 2-door hatchback as a rental (hire) car when I worked with clients in the Bristol, UK area in the late 1980s. Besides being the only Vauxhall I’ve ever driven, I remember it was one of the hottest summers on record while driving an Astra with a black interior and no A/C (not common in pleb UK cars then).
The saving grace was a manually opening sunroof that would pull the accumulated hot air from the vehicle. Other than that, it was thankfully a manual (the better to row the max hp from 1.2L) and green.
I remember staying in a hotel room above a pub more than driving impressions of that car. That and most of my lunches with clients were spent at various pubs in the area.
It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? It’s an Opel with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. If you are going to do THAT, you might as well whip up some new badges and keep a bit of British heritage alive, Vauxhall dating back to 1903 as a car company.
That being said, they do sell right-hand-drive Opel-badged cars in Ireland.
But they don’t sell left-hand-drive Vauxhalls anywhere, AFAIK.
I can certainly see why they would prefer to not sell them with a British badge in Ireland…
Malta and Cyprus too.
I know some one who has both a Prince Henry and a Carlton , Okay I know the latter is a Lotus underneath, the former is formidable. Oh, twenty years? ………………….. long think……….. nah.
The Moka is no SR Nova.
There’s that one car….. but I forget what’s it called.
I often forget Infiniti exists, like many others here. There’s only a single dealer within 2.5 hours of my house? And that one clearly hasn’t sold much in a long while.
The Acura RLX. Not RDX, RLX. I was so confused looking at it the other day, seeing as the tail lights didn’t looking like any of Acura’s sedan lineup, thinking it was a TlX but nope. I think it has been the first time in my life I have actually seen one.
“My favorite car is the Vauxhall Grandland” is something that’s never been said, written or even thought but it’s still the fastest selling car in Europe. It’s kind of sad how people are forced to settle. I’m sure it’s fine and will get people where they’re going reliably for many years but I’m also sure they would all rather be in the car that puts a smile on their faces instead.
I find it interesting that so many of them are evidently being sold on at only one year old. Company cars are very much a thing in the UK, are these very popular for that and getting dumped with epic depreciation at one year old? The Merc being the upmarket company car for directors so the same?
Because here in the US, where typically the shortest lease is usually 2yrs, and much more commonly 3yrs, a car that was getting commonly dumped after only a year would probably be something to stay well away from.
Also, it’s sad that crossover-itis is infecting Europe as well.
Much like the special place a Nissan Rogue would hold in the US.
Oh, hi Egg – I mean, Ann!
Even thinking of that scene makes my stomach hurt (with laughter).
Subaru Tribeca, I remember the b9 Tribeca they sold ok but not well you would see them but then they brought out the tribeca but you never saw them unless you were in a big Subaru market I’m not even sure smaller Subaru markets sold them at this point. There is also kia Borrego in a similar boat you rarely see them but they exist.
The Borrego had the bad luck of arriving as body-on-frame right when others were transitioning to car based crossovers in that market segment. I think it also landed into the teeth of the Great Recession.
I remember when Vauxhall was a GM badge.
I would love to have had a Vauxhall Chevette instead of the Chevrolet Chevette I drove in high school and college.
I honestly didn’t realize Vauxhall was still a brand until I visited London a few weeks back and saw several ads on TV for the Grandland. I didn’t see any on the road.
You saw them, they sell plenty in the UK. You just didn’t NOTICE them. The last car they made that was worth notice was the Lotus Carlton. Otherwise, completely anonymous cars. Gray no matter what color they are actually painted, like most GM dreck.
Sentra Nismo. Totally not remembering that for the first time in years because of the article that just was published. Absolutely no correlation whatsoever.
The Kia Rondo, or was it a Hyundai?
Along the same lines, the Hyundai Entourage.