The recovery of the Western European automotive market continues. In detail, in January new car registrations increased by 10.7% compared to the same month in 2022.
However, comparing the figure for January this year with that of January 2019, i.e. the year before the pandemic, there is still a drop of 25.7%.
We are therefore still a long way from returning to normal, but there seems to be a trend reversal, which took shape starting from last August after thirteen consecutive monthly declines.
The reason for this situation is essentially the improvement in the availability of new cars which had been, and in part still is, heavily penalized by the shortage of components and in particular of microchips.
However, the weakness of demand linked to the pandemic and all the negative events that followed it still weighs heavily on the Western European market: from the war in Ukraine, to the energy crisis, to the return of inflation and the growth in the cost of money, to mention only the main ones.
The improvement of the situation with an increase in product availability is also influencing the type of cars that are registered because many car manufacturers have recently favored electric cars to the detriment of traditionally fueled cars which, therefore, today have greater supply difficulties than to electric.
This situation, among other things, led to very positive results in the registrations of electric cars in some countries of the area at the end of December, but in January the acceleration of the electric car was not reflected in some markets. In particular, in Germany there are concerns about the sales of electric cars also due to the lack of state subsidies. Also in Italy the share of electricity in January fell and reached 2.6%, placing itself below the level of the whole of 2022 which had fallen to 3.7% from 4.6% in 2021 and therefore on decidedly low compared to other important Western European markets where the share of electricity is now double-digit.
“Always with reference to Italy, the forecasts for electric cars remain pessimistic, also because the incentives that can be booked from 10 January on the platform of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport are in very little demand. And this emerges clearly from the fact that as of yesterday 95.2% of the allocation for incentives for the purchase of cars with CO2 emissions ranging from 0 to 20 grams per kilometer and 96.3% for that of cars with CO2 emissions from 21 to 60 grams per kilometre, while the allocation for incentives for cars with CO2 emissions from 61 to 135 grams per kilometer ran out on 7 February”. Said Gian Primo Quagliano, president of the Centro Studi Promotor.
“Apart from electric cars, the situation on the car market in Western Europe is still decidedly difficult. The recovery of registrations underway is undoubtedly positive, but the return to pre-crisis levels is certainly not within reach in 2023″.