Behind the wheel newsletter

From the marketing desk

Welcome to the February edition of Behind the Wheel for 2026 and the rapid start to the year has continued in the same vein this month.

Professional Services delivered an insightful article that explores why accurate emissions reporting data is essential for those companies looking to make informed investment decisions in the automotive sector. More on that later.  

Advisory have also been hard at work penning two arresting articles. One on how the current influx of Chinese brands into the Brazilian automotive market is reshaping the industry there. The other focuses on the rise of Chinese BEV sales across APAC. We’ll unpack those articles in the Advisory news section.

Read on to explore the latest data insights that will help strengthen your competitive advantage in the fast-moving global automotive market.

Yours in motoring,

Mark Talmage-Rostron
Content Lead

JATO in the news

We’ve again been featured in several leading online global publications.

Using our data, Global Fleet created an article reporting on how India’s passenger vehicle market hit record highs in January with 539,543 vehicles registered. Want to know what OEMs are leading the increase? Get the insight.

AM Online unpacked the unstoppable momentum of Chinese OEMs in Europe, with volumes surging 44% year-on-year in 2025, representing a defining moment in their fast-moving expansion. Find out why.

 And in one of the biggest surprises, it was Volkswagen and not a Chinese brand that has now overtaken Tesla as the best-selling BEV brand across Europe with 274,000 units registered in total in 2025, up 56% year on year. Read the Motor Trader article .

OEM news

OEMs and NSCs can now take advantage of a free trial of JATO Monthly Payments. Simply fill in the trial form, select the segment and market you're most interested in, and we'll give you access to Monthly Payments Analytics.

JATO Monthly Payments provides all the data you need for complete finance visibility, helping you optimise offer competitiveness, understand your competitive positioning, track weekly market developments, compare contract structures and review pricing decisions with clarity. Find out more.

Advisory news

Things never stand still in Advisory and February has been a busy month with lots of insights articles created, the predominance being around the continued domination of Chinese brands not just across Europe, but also APAC and Latin America. 

Rafael Sellinas produced an insightful article on the surge of Chinese brands in Brazil’s automotive market. SUVs dominated with 55% of all registrations, and Chinese SUV registrations doubled annually, driven almost entirely by the C and D segments, accounting for 93% of their total. Become informed.

Staying on China, Jatin Kataria developed an article that focuses on the rise of Chinese BEV sales across APAC, mostly in the battery electric vehicle segment. What's facilitating the surge?.

Retail news

The much-anticipated VINView Pro launch across new European markets took place. Already in the UK, it’s now present in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. Available via Sales Link or API, the solution enables dealerships to appraise, list, and sell smarter. Be the first to benefit from this solution that goes beyond basic VIN decoding, delivering full factory build data. Get in touch.

The team also attended the premier NADA automotive show in Las Vegas where Paul Hilton and the team gained valuable knowledge that will be turned into data insights, spoke to the media, and forged valuable relationships.

And in breaking news, we’re now part of the Independent Motor Dealers Association in the UK, a body that supports the independent dealer network through our dealer specific products.

Leasing and fleet news

February was all about the team facilitating a key product launch in new European markets and gearing up for three high-profile industry events in March.

Established in the UK, our powerful VINView Pro solution went live in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. Supplying detailed original equipment, optional features and pricing information tied to a vehicle’s VIN or registration, the solution eliminates data gaps and inaccuracies that can lead to mispricing, inconsistent valuations, or operational inefficiencies. Start benefitting.

Regarding events, the team will be attending Flotauto in Paris on 12 March where visitors will get a preview of our upcoming VANFinder solution and catch a demo of VINView Pro. We’ll also be at Fleet Europe in Turkey on 27 March where Jesper Rolink will deliver an insightful talk about leasing trends.

02FEB26 ESG blog article thumbnails Web3

Professional Services news

Solving complex ESG challenges remains an ongoing issue for financial institutions looking to accelerate their transition to net zero. Historically this has been down to poor quality, consistency, and credibility of emissions data. Not anymore. With JATO’s data and expertise, companies can gain the confidence to align their automotive manufacturing and lending investment activities with their sustainability ambitions. Discover the data.

Looking ahead to March, our Professional Services lead David Di Girolamo will represent JATO at the Neudata Conference in London on 26 March. Drop by and find out how our data can help you realise better business outcomes.

Overview of local markets

As an established global company operating across 51+ countries, it stands to reason that there will be a lot happening in all the geographies that we have a presence in. That ongoing activity has brought about the aggregation of a lot of meaningful and actionable data that will be beneficial for you and your business. We’ve been busy putting together an overview of the regions we operate across, so read on to see what has been happening across Europe, Asia Pacific, and The Americas this month.

Europe

In January 2026, new EU car registrations fell by 3.9% compared to January last year, marking a second consecutive challenging start to the year for the market.

Battery-Electric vehicles (BEVs) accounted for 19.3% of the EU market share last month, an increase from the low baseline of 14.9% one year earlier. Hybrid registrations captured 38.6% of the market, remaining the preferred choice among consumers in the EU currently. Meanwhile, the combined market share of petrol and diesel cars continues in a downward trend, falling to 30.1%, down from 39.5% in January 2025.

January 2026 figures also showed new EU hybrid-electric car registrations rising to 308,364 units, supported by growth in Italy (+24.9%) and Spain (+9%), while France remained stable. Completing the four major markets, Germany recorded a decline of 1.8% compared with January 2025. Overall, hybrid-electric models accounted for 38.6% of the total EU market.

Registrations of plug-in-hybrid electric cars continue to show strong growth, reaching 78,741 units in the first month of 2026. This was driven by rising volumes in key markets such as Italy (+134.2%), Spain (+66.7%), and Germany (+23%). As a result, new plug-in-hybrid electric cars now represent 9.8% of EU registrations, up from 7.4% in January last year.

In January, petrol car registrations dropped by 28.2%, with all major markets experiencing decreases, entirely expected given the ever-increasing ranges now offered in the electric/hybrid sphere. France experienced the steepest drop, with registrations plummeting by 48.9%, followed by Germany (-29.9%), Italy (-25.5%), and Spain (-22.5%).

With 175,989 new cars registered last month, the market share for petrol fell to 22% from 29.5% in the same month last year. The diesel car market continued its downward trend, with registrations declining by 22.3% and accounting for 8.1% of new car registrations last January.

Aston Martin is set to cut nearly 600 jobs, equating to up to a fifth of its global workforce, as the company confronts widening annual losses.

The significant reduction, impacting up to 20% of its 2,800 employees worldwide, follows a previous round of 170 job losses confirmed at the beginning of last year. The luxury marque confirmed the plans after revealing earlier this month that it was consulting on the latest redundancy programme.

Tesla’s new car registrations in Europe fell 17% year-on-year in January, marking the 13th consecutive month in which sales have shrunk across the continent. In sharp contrast, Chinese EV giant BYD has more than doubled its market share across the European Union, Britain, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.

Asia Pacific

China's car sales in January fell at the fastest pace in nearly two years as competition steepens in the cut-throat market where automakers are grappling with fading government subsidies, softening demand and tighter regulations.

Sales dropped 19.5% from a year earlier to 1.4 million vehicles, the biggest fall since February 2024, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers recently showed.

Retail sales of electric cars and plug-in hybrids, a sector known as new energy vehicles (NEV), which had previously been outpacing the overall market, fell 22.9% last month.

Wide fluctuations in China's car sales in the first two months of the year are common due to the shifting timing of the week-long Lunar New Year holiday as purchases are often made beforehand. This year, the holiday begins in mid-February compared to late January last year, underscoring the depth of the poor market conditions at the start of this year.

A revised government trade-in policy has also curtailed subsidies for lower-priced cars that make up the bulk of new car sales, setting the stage for expected flat growth this year.

The impact of U.S. tariffs on Japanese automakers is easing, Japanese officials said in a report published earlier this month, while maintaining a cautiously optimistic view of the overall economy. In its monthly economic assessment for February, the Cabinet Office reiterated that the market was recovering moderately while still feeling the effects of U.S. tariffs.

The Cabinet Office also revised up its assessment of corporate profits for the first time in 11 months, saying they were "showing signs of recovery" instead of "recovery is stalling", citing upward October-December quarter earnings.

On prices, it highlighted a continued drop in consumer inflation rate thanks to slowing food price hikes. The report's wording for consumer prices was revised to "rising at a slower tempo" from "rising" for the first time since November 2024.

Tesla’s China-produced EV sales grew modestly in January from the year before, amid a broader industry slowdown. January deliveries from Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory rose by rose by 9% from the year before, according to the China Passenger Car Association. However, China’s EV market is projected to continue slowing, as the government has slashed tax subsidies for new EV sales.

The Americas

Earlier in February, the Supreme Court ruled that President Trump’s global tariffs are illegal, in a stinging repudiation of a signature White House initiative. The ruling didn’t address whether the government will have to pay back the tariff revenue it already has collected.

The ruling marked the first time the Supreme Court has definitively struck down one of Trump’s second-term policies.

Stellantis reported a 2025 second-half net loss of USD 23.8 billion, confirming that the automaker would finish the year in the red for the first time since its creation in 2021.

Adjusted operating loss in the second half was 1.7%, at the upper range of guidance issued February 6, when Stellantis warned investors that it was taking tens of billions in write-downs, mostly because of overly optimistic projections about electric vehicle sales, the company said earlier in the week.

The write-downs included impairments for cancelled or delayed models such as the Ram 1500 BEV pickup truck and Alfa Romeo EVs, scaling down the EV supply chain, and revised warranty estimates linked to quality issues.

“Our 2025 full-year results reflect the cost of over-estimating the pace of the energy transition and of the need to reset our business around our customers’ freedom to choose from the full range of electric, hybrid and internal combustion technologies,” CEO Filosa said in a news release.

Tesla has unveiled a cheaper Cybertruck variant in the U.S. and slashed the price of its most-expensive model, Cyberbeast, as the electric-vehicle maker struggles to find buyers for its pickup trucks.

The Cybertruck was touted by CEO Elon Musk as a futuristic competitor to mass market pickup trucks from legacy brands such as Ford, but multiple recalls and quality control issues plagued the car and turned prospective customers away.