Chery outsells Ford in Europe in September as Chinese brands gain ground

Chery Automobile registered 52,801 new cars across 31 European markets in September, according to figures the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) published on 22 October. Ford registered 32,331. A year earlier the order was the other way round: Ford registered 40,826 cars in September 2025 and Chery 18,495.

ACEA counts Chery’s four brands – Chery, Omoda, Jaecoo and Jetour – as one group. Its September registrations rose 185.5% year on year, and ACEA estimates its share of the month’s market at 3.9%, against 2.4% for Ford. BYD registered 49,953 cars, up 98.7%, and SAIC Motor, the owner of MG, 41,987, up 23.7%. Tesla registered 68,776.

Chery and BYD together accounted for 3.5% of September registrations in 2025 and 7.5% in 2026. The market they are growing in is not shrinking: registrations across the 31 markets rose 10.2% to 1,363,210.

The figures put two Chinese groups among the larger suppliers of new cars in Europe, within a year. Their growth is coming in a month when several long-established volume brands lost ground, which changes the list of makers a company car buyer is choosing between.

Where the established brands fell

ACEA’s September table shows Ford down 20.8%, the Hyundai brand down 17.5%, Nissan down 15.6% and Dacia down 8.9%. The Volkswagen brand fell 5.0%, and the wider Volkswagen Group 2.9%. The losses were not shared by every established maker: Kia, Hyundai’s sister brand, rose 13.7%, Renault rose 4.8% and Mercedes-Benz 5.8%.

Over nine months the gap between Chery and Ford has almost closed. Ford registered 277,269 cars across the 31 markets between January and September, 15.2% fewer than a year earlier. Chery registered 260,650, up 255.9%. In the same months of 2025 Ford was 253,788 cars ahead of Chery. This year the margin is 16,619.

BYD’s nine-month total rose 134.6% to 283,997, putting it ahead of both Chery and Ford. Tesla’s nine-month total of 260,575 is now level with Chery’s. SAIC Motor grew more slowly: it registered 226,393 cars in the first nine months of 2025, more than BYD and Chery combined, and 272,251 in the same months of 2026, up 20.3%.

Most of Chery’s September volume came from outside the EU. ACEA records 20,707 Chery registrations in the EU that month, leaving 32,094 in the four non-EU markets it covers. ACEA does not split that figure by country. The largest of the four, with 350,536 UK registrations in September, was also the largest market in the release, ahead of Germany’s 256,774.

An incumbent sells a challenger

Leapmotor took a different route into Europe. Its September registrations rose 323.9% to 14,594, and its nine-month total rose 424.2% to 87,922. ACEA notes that its cars are distributed by Leapmotor International, a company owned 51% by Stellantis and 49% by Leapmotor.

Stellantis, the owner of Peugeot, Fiat, Citroen and Vauxhall, registered 172,977 cars across the 31 markets in September, up 4.5%. ACEA puts the combined share of Stellantis and Leapmotor at 15.3% for the first nine months. ACEA counts Leapmotor’s cars separately from Stellantis’s own total, but the company that sells them is one Stellantis controls.

ACEA counts Geely Group, which includes Volvo Cars, Polestar, Lotus and Zeekr, as a group of nine brands. It registered 54,778 cars in September, up 33.3%.

The powertrain shift underneath

The Chinese gains sit inside a wider move to battery-electric cars. Across the 31 markets, 416,433 battery-electric cars were registered in September, up 59.9% and 30.5% of the total. Petrol registrations fell 20.6% and diesel 28.2%. The largest increases in volume came in Germany, where battery-electric registrations rose 94.7% to 88,599, and France, where they rose 107.5% to 65,243.

In the EU alone, battery-electric cars took 22.7% of registrations in the first nine months, up from 16.1% a year earlier, while hybrids remained the largest category at 36.3% (ACEA counts full and mild hybrids together). ACEA attributes the demand for electrified cars partly to “a broader model offering”.

ACEA says the figures contain provisional data and may be revised. They do not split each maker’s registrations by powertrain, or between private and company buyers, so they do not show how much of Chery’s or BYD’s volume went to fleets.

Chery, which registered 73,237 cars across these markets in the first nine months of 2025, registered 260,650 in the same months of 2026, while Ford, Hyundai and Nissan registered fewer. For the directors who sign off company car and fleet orders, the makers competing for the next one now include three Chinese groups – Chery, BYD and SAIC Motor – that each registered more cars in September than Ford, as did Geely Group.