ACEA — 2022-09-16
News from Brussels
In July 2022, new car registrations in the European Union decreased again (-10.4%), despite an already low base of comparison caused by the ongoing semiconductor shortage. All the four major EU markets performed worse than one year ago, with Germany (-12.9%) and Spain (-12.5%) posting the strongest declines.
In August, the European new car market finally returned to growth (+4.4%), bringing an end to thirteen months of consecutive decline. However – with 650,305 units registered – this result remains far below pre-pandemic levels. All the key EU markets positively contributed to the region’s growth, with solid gains seen in Italy (+9.9%), Spain (+9.1%), France (+3.8%) and Germany (+3.0%).
Eight months into 2022, overall volumes contracted by 11.9% to reach nearly 6m new passenger cars sold. Despite the recent improvement, earlier declines weigh negatively on the cumulative performance. As a result, the four key markets have all faced losses so far this year: Italy (-18.4%), France (-13.8%), Germany (-9.8%) and Spain (-9.4%).