June grows by double digits (18.7%) and electric vehicles surpass diesel vehicles for the first time

ROME – The Western European car market (EU+EFTA+UK) is still recording double-digit growth and for the first time electric cars surpass diesel cars in terms of market share. In June – according to ACEA datathe association of European manufacturers – registrations were 1,265,678, 18.7% more than in the same month of 2022. The first half of 2023 closed with 6,588,937, with an increase of 17.6% over the same period last year. In June, the Stellantis group registered 210,495 cars on the Western European car market (EU + EFTA + UK), with a decrease of 2.5% compared to the same month in 2022. The share is 16.6% . In the EU market, Stellantis is down by 1.3% with a share of 18.1%. In the first half of 2023, new car registrations in the EU increased significantly (+17.9%), reaching 5.4 million units. “The improvements in recent months indicate that the European automotive industry – explains Acea – is recovering from the supply disruptions caused by the pandemic. However, cumulative volumes are 21% lower than in 2019”. Most of the region’s markets grew significantly in the first six months of 2023, including the four largest: Spain (+24.0%), Italy (+22.8%), France (+15.3%) and Germany (+12.8%).

Electric cars outsell diesel vehicles in Europe. For the first time, in June, the market share of full electric cars, which stands at 15.1%, exceeds that of diesel-powered cars, which stands at 13.4%. Gasoline remains firmly in the lead as the first type of fuel, at 36.3%, followed by the hybrid at 24.3%. The overtaking of pure electric on diesel is also due to the results of June: new registrations of battery electric cars in the EU increased by a significant 66.2%, reaching 158,252 units, with a market share that from 10 .7 jumped to 15.1%.

The pre-Covid performances are still far away, despite the positive results, but it is a “recovery”, not a real recovery. This was underlined by the Promoter Study Center of Bologna. Some expected a progressive recovery and return to 2019 data, as happened in most sectors. It didn’t happen in the car. “The really important data – underlines Gian Primo Quagliano, president of Promotor – is in fact the permanence of the car market at very distant sales levels compared to 2019. In particular, for the first half of the year, comparing the data released today with that of the same period of 2019, a drop of 21.8% emerges. This result appears to be in stark contrast to the general trend of the economy which in the whole area at the end of 2022 has now recovered from the sharp fall generated by the pandemic”. If we consider the five largest markets in Western Europe, it emerges that in the whole of 2022, GDP in Germany exceeded the level of 2019 by 0.63%, while car registrations suffered a drop of 26.5% on the levels of 2019; in the United Kingdom the same comparison tells us that against a very modest drop in GDP (-0.35%) registrations fell by 30.2%; in France, GDP grew by 1.03% and registrations fell by 27.3%; in Italy, GDP grew by 0.96% and registrations fell by 31.3%; finally, in Spain, the GDP fell by 1.33%, but for registrations there was a drop of 35.4%. “The positive data from August 2022 are the result of the orders accumulated before – says Quagliano – there are no new orders because the influx of new purchase requests is languishing”.