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Paris, France - European car sales soared by 13.7% in November, but scandal-plagued Volkswagen trailed the pack with only a 4.1% increase, data from a trade industry body showed Tuesday.
While VW still remained by far the top automakers in Europe by sales, it had the smallest monthly percentage gain of all automakers, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association data showed.
VW has been embroiled in scandal since September 2015, when it admitted it had installed emission-cheating software into 11 million diesel engine vehicles worldwide.
Scandal to cost VW billions
The scandal could easily cost the company tens of billions of euros in repair costs and fines and there have been concerns that it could also crimp sales going forward.
The company said last week that worldwide sales of all of its 12 different brands were down 2.2% in November.
Although VW's European sales still rose in November, its market share slid to 24.3% compared to 26.6% in the same month last year.
READ: Latest on VW emissions scandal
Over the 11 months of the year, European new car registrations - a proxy for sales - were up 8.7% to 12.6 million vehicles, already beating the number sold in 2014.
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association saud in a statement: "Nevertheless, this result is only now reaching the levels registered in immediate post-crisis years."
The 1.08 million vehicles sold in November this year is still far from the more than 1.2 million vehicles sold during that month in 2006 and 2007, before the global economic crisis struck.
