The best-selling car in Spain is the Dacia Sandero. It is a completely irrelevant fact to understand Spain

The Dacia Sandero was, in 2024, the best selling car in Spain. It was, in fact, in a total of five countries around the world. In addition to Spain, the Sandero repeated the throne in Bulgaria, Kosovo, Morocco and Portugal. This year we are on track to repeat it, with a Dacia Sandero that has added 28,765 units. Well above the MG ZS, the second best-selling car with 19,251 euros.

The data tells us that among the best selling cars In our country the cheapest vehicles triumph. The Renault Clio is the third option. Despite having announced a new generation, it is still the third best-selling car in our country and can be found for prices starting at just over 16,000 euros. The Seat Ibiza is the fourth best-selling car and its starting price is just below the 15,000 euro border. Among the 10 best-selling cars we also find the Peugeot 208, which starts at 17,000 euros.

Are we poor? This is what many responses on social networks affirm to each and every one of the lists of the best-selling cars in the world. The reactions compare us with the Nordic countries or Belgium, where the Tesla Model Y was the best-selling car last year. But… what if the statistics were distorted?

Simply looking at which is the best-selling car by country gives rise to some paradoxes.

France has a salary average of 44,968 euros, while in our country we move at 31,698 euros, according to data collected by Expansion. Despite this, the best-selling car in France in 2024 was the Renault Clio… followed by the Peugeot 208 and the Dacia Sandero. Photography is not very different from that of our country.

Finland has an average salary of 52,893 euros, double the 25,198 euros in Greece. Both, however, share that the best selling car in their countries last year it was the Toyota Yaris Cross. The same car that repeated as the best-selling in Poland.

Now, we can understand that the photograph may be somewhat distorted.

Bestseller just means “bestseller”

“The fact that sales were concentrated on that type of car (the Dacia Sandero) or on its price level, that it was the best-seller did not say anything about our purchasing capacity”

Who maintains this is Manuel HidalgoDoctor in Economics from the Pompeu Fabra University and professor at the Pablo de Olavide University (Seville). He did it with a tweet on

According to his calculations: 33,251 euros.

That is the average price of cars bought in Spain. And the data even has nuances that would raise this figure. We might think that a very expensive car will undoubtedly raise the average price. For example, a Dacia Sandero sells for less than 15,000 euros, so a car worth 150,000 euros is equivalent to the registration of ten of these cars.

But Hidalgo has also crossed the frequency with which these cars are purchased. And in the graph above you can see that, indeed, there is a good number of vehicles sold at the average price of a Dacia Sandero and then there is a spike when the graph approaches 20,000 euros.

However, most cars sold In our country they stand at 30,000 euros, very close to the average of 33,251 euros. From here, there is a marked drop.

The professor and Doctor in economics explains that to obtain the data he has taken the data of the best-selling cars in our country between January and September 2025 (latest data available) and has crossed them with the RRP of the price at which each and every one of the cars in our country are sold.

These data show that six times more cars are sold at the 30,000 euro border than at the 14,000 euro border where the Sandero starts. The leadership of the latter is based on the fact that it is the market reference among the cheapest cars. The options in this price range are also much more limited, so at higher prices sales are diversified and, therefore, it is more difficult for a car to gain points to appear among the 10 best-selling cars in our country.

But, as we said, it is very likely that the average price we pay for our car in Spain be taller. We asked Manuel Hidalgo about this possibility and he confirmed it. It must be taken into account that the data shown is obtained with the RRP of the car but not with the expenditure that the private client makes on equipment or superior mechanics.

And the basic versions of a car are, in many cases and more so in cheap vehicles like the Dacia Sandero, focused on large fleets. This explains that if the car is segmented between individuals and legal entities, the curve shifts to the right.

According to the data collected by Manuel Hidalgo, the average of the car purchased by an individual is higher than the average of the legal entity. Specifically, an individual spends 33,982 euros per vehicle, while an individual spends 32,376 euros.

Looking at the graph above, we see that it is common to buy cars for very low priced fleets. So much so that the graphs between individuals and companies do not equalize until both reach 20,000 euros. Among individuals, the frequency of purchases between 20,000 and 30,000 euros shoots up earlier and it is evident that the final average price is driven by a rebound in purchases between 50,000 and 60,000 euros.

Among individuals, it is evident that there is a purchase for fleets and work vehicles where the cheapest cars are sought. Then, the frequency shoots up again at the border of 30,000 euros, showing that it is the segment preferred by companies for cars used by their employees or by self-employed people who can deduct part of the fees.

That is, yes, in Spain the most purchased car is the Dacia Sandero but the variables that must be taken into account to analyze the market are multiple. The data, as we say, is very likely to show a reality even more pessimistic than that shown because it is not possible to know how much money buyers have spent on vehicles with more expensive equipment or mechanics.

Photo | Dacia and Frames For Your Heart

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