ROME – The numbers are almost unbelievable: in March in Italy the car market recorded a sensational more than 497.2% compared to the same month last year. But 169,684 cars were registered in Italy and the record percentage is due to the total stop of sales in 2020 in full lockdown. In this context, the Stellantis group registered 68,222 cars in Italy in March compared to 8,096 in the same month of 2020, with a growth of 742.7%. The share rises to 40.2% compared to 28.5% a year ago.
In the three months, the group’s registrations totaled 179,937, 25.8% more than the same period last year when there were 143,070. The share is 40.3% compared to 41.2% in the first quarter of a year ago.
“This exceptional rate of development – explains the Centro Studi Promotor – is certainly not due to a particularly prosperous situation in the car market, which is still in serious difficulty, but simply to the fact that the comparison is made with March 2020 which it was the first month affected by the effects of the pandemic and which recorded a real drop in registrations which fell to 28,415 units. If you compare the figure of last March with that of the last “normal” month, March 2019, growth disappears and on the contrary, it records a decline of 12.7% … “Having said that, however, we cannot forget that the first quarter of 2021 of the Italian car market is better than that of the main European Union countries. But there is a catch here too. And it is linked that only we have (indeed we had because by now the allocated funds are finished) incentives for “normal” cars, not electric or hybrid, in any case with emissions not exceeding 135 gr / km of CO2.
In short, the situation is far from rosy. To the point that Unrae, an association of foreign manufacturers, even speaks of “a continuous decline in the new car market, which in March recorded a decline of 12.7% compared to the same month in 2019”: it deems it impossible to compare with the 28,415 registered cars in March 2020 due to the total lockdown. The same goes for the analysis company Dataforce which from this month until May will compare the results with those of 2019 as the comparison with 2020 “would be totally inconsistent due to the lockdown of the first wave of Covid which had practically zeroed registrations” .
In fact, on closer inspection, registrations in the month amounted to 169,684 units, 24,600 cars less than in March 2019, despite the benefit of two more working days without which the balance would have been even more negative. And therefore, again according to the Unare analysis, the first quarter filed 446,978 registrations, down by 16.9% compared to January-March 2019.
There is little to be happy about. And the pessimism is also found in the words of the president of Federauto, an association of car dealers, who is clamoring for incentives: “Especially in the current economic situation – explains Adolfo De Stefani Cosentino – these policies are crucial and represent one of the main levers that generate added value for the Treasury. Together with strategic choices in terms of alignment of corporate car taxation at European levels and development of ultra-fast High Power Charge charging infrastructures for electric and plug-in vehicles. In our opinion, these measures would be capable of engaging the right gear for a change of speed, preparatory to the exit from the serious crisis caused by the pandemic ”.
“However – he concludes – without an active and supportive role of the Government capable of accompanying the ecological transition and making emerging technological innovation competitive and financially sustainable for families and businesses, the car market, both upstream and downstream, it is destined to further economic and employment fragility “.
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