August EU Car Sales Increased after 13 Months of Decline

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During July 2022, new car registrations in the European Union decreased again (-10.4%), even with low base of comparison caused by the ongoing semiconductor shortage according to ACEA* today. All the four major EU markets performed worse than one year ago, with Germany (-12.9%) and Spain (-12.5%) posting the strongest declines.

However, during August, the European new car market returned to growth (+4.4%), bringing an end to thirteen months of consecutive decline.

Nonetheless, with 650,305 units registered this remains far below pre-pandemic levels. All the key EU markets positively contributed to the region’s growth, with gains seen in Italy (+9.9%), Spain (+9.1%), France (+3.8%) and Germany (+3.0%).

Eight months into 2022, overall sales volumes contracted by -11.9% to reach almost 6 million 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%).

*ACEA: The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) represents the 16 major Europe-based car, van, truck and bus makers: BMW Group, DAF Trucks, Daimler Truck, Ferrari, Ford of Europe, Honda Motor Europe, Hyundai Motor Europe, Iveco Group, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Renault Group, Stellantis, Toyota Motor Europe, Volkswagen Group, Volvo Cars, and Volvo Group.

 EU automobile industry

• 7 million Europeans work in the auto industry (directly and indirectly), accounting for 6.6% of all EU jobs.
• 5% of EU manufacturing jobs, 3.5 million, are in the automotive sector.
• Motor vehicles are responsible for €398.4 billion of tax revenue for governments across key European markets.
• The automobile industry generates a trade surplus of €76.3 billion for the EU.
• The turnover generated by the auto industry represents more than 8% of the EU’s GDP.
• Investing €58.8 billion in R&D annually, the automotive sector is Europe’s largest private contributor to innovation, accounting for 32% of total EU spending.