ROME – The European car market has resumed the race. The data are quite clear: +16.1 percent in April and +17.2 in the first four months of the year which, to get a better idea, means over 4.2 million cars sold. Certainly, as many analysts point out, “the situation of the supply of essential components for the production of motor vehicles” (Centro Studi Promotor) is starting to improve. Translated, it means that there is now greater product availability, thus confirming that what the market is going through is a crisis of supply and not of demand.
Likely. The fact is, however, that waiting times for those who want to buy a car are still stuck at many months: from 4 to 9 depending on the model. Maybe it will improve but for now it is.
Beyond the usual and rather useless complaints about the fact that more cars were sold before covid, the real problem is another and concerns Italy. Because if it is true that globally the percentage of growth in car sales in our country is the highest in Europe (+29.2% in April, followed by France +21.9, Germany +12.6, United Kingdom + 11.6 and Spain +8.2%) completely overturned is the data on electricity. Indeed, among the five major European markets, the Italian one records the lowest share (and not by a small amount): in the first four months just 3.7 per cent, against Spain (4.7%), Germany (14.3), France (14.8) and the United Kingdom (15.4).
These are data that should make you think. Data that are certainly the consequence of many delays in terms of recharging infrastructures and their usability throughout the country: about 57% in Northern Italy, 22% in the Center and only 21% in the South and Islands. But not only. Because to all this must be added, as we have repeatedly repeated, the still too high price lists (on average 30 percent more than similar models with internal combustion engines) which allow only countries with rather high per capita incomes (as in the case of Sweden, Denmark and Germany) to be able to afford the purchase of zero-emission cars.
Therefore, there is a lot of ground to recover. An aspect that Matteo Salvini also underlined in his opening speech in Verona for the Automotive Dealer Day. When the relentless numbers of the pure electric market, the sales quotas and the data of the columns appeared on the screen, the Minister of Transport and Infrastructures said that “We need to speed up” and that “This gap with the rest of the EU must be recovered”.
Therefore, it is better to direct resources towards infrastructures and incentives rather than towards biofuels (or synthetic ones). The real scenario, in fact, is the one on which the car manufacturers are focusing. According to their industrial plans, examined by an interesting study by Dataforce, within the next three years 44 percent of all models on sale will be completely electric and already in 2026 even 66 percent of new models put on the market will be zero-emissions. market. Numbers that once again indicate a clear industrial and environmental choice. A choice, however, which in individual countries will have to be supported by politics. Especially in Italy.