{"id":271427,"date":"2026-02-03T06:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T06:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/271427\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T06:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T06:55:09","slug":"israel-car-market-opens-2026-weakly-as-chinese-brands-surge-and-ev-sales-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/271427\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel car market opens 2026 weakly as Chinese brands surge and EV sales fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

After an increase in vehicle deliveries in 2025, Israel\u2019s car market opened 2026 on a more subdued note. A total of 41,600 new cars took to the roads in January, an 11% decline compared with January last year.<\/p>\n

As usual, the figure does not include buses, trucks, two-wheeled vehicles or cars imported through personal or parallel channels.<\/p>\n

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2 View gallery <\/p>\n

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January deliveries fall 11% year on year <\/p>\n

(Photo: Ido Erez)<\/p>\n

Hyundai returned to the top of the market with nearly 5,000 deliveries, despite a 10% year-on-year decline. In second place, under the same importer, Chinese brand Jaecoo posted a meteoric rise of about 140%, completing a strong opening month for most Chinese brands.<\/p>\n

Chery and BYD also ranked in the top 10 after registering significant growth, while MG recorded a sharp decline.<\/p>\n

Changan\u2019s Deepal was surprised by reaching 11th place, ahead of Suzuki, which belongs to the same importer group. South Korean brand KGM also secured a notably high position.<\/p>\n

Strong gains were recorded by Citroen, Mercedes after a particularly weak year, Geely and Opel, which climbed to 22nd place with a 270% increase, ahead of sister brand Peugeot. Chinese brand Leapmotor rose 74% to 26th place.<\/p>\n

By contrast, several established brands saw steep declines. Mazda fell from 3,200 deliveries in January last year to just 300 this January, a 91% drop, plunging from fifth place to 29th.<\/p>\n

Seat recorded a 73% decline, while Subaru, Nissan and Cupra each fell by 60%. Volkswagen, Mitsubishi and Xpeng posted declines of about 40%.<\/p>\n

More Chinese, fewer EVs: Chinese-made vehicles continued to strengthen their position, accounting for 38% of all deliveries in January. South Korean brands held steady with a 20% market share, while Japanese brands fell from 16% last year to 11% this year.<\/p>\n

Electric vehicles, however, dropped to just 9.5% market share, half their level a year earlier. Changan led EV deliveries with 636 units, followed by BYD with 563 and Xpeng with about 500. Tesla did not deliver a single vehicle.<\/p>\n

Hybrids accounted for 28% of the market, led by Hyundai and Toyota with about 3,500 deliveries each, followed by Kia and Chery with about 1,100 each.<\/p>\n

Plug-in hybrids continued to climb, reaching a 23.5% market share, with clear dominance by Chery Group brands. Jaecoo delivered 3,900 plug-in hybrids and Chery delivered 2,500. BYD added another 1,900 plug-in hybrid vehicles.<\/p>\n

Overall, 61% of all cars sold in January used some form of electric propulsion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After an increase in vehicle deliveries in 2025, Israel\u2019s car market opened 2026 on a more subdued note.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-271427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}