European Union's car market continued to decline in September

MW European Union's car market continued to decline in September

By Louis Goss

Europe's car market saw a further slowdown in September, suffering from a major slump in sales of petrol, diesel, and battery electric vehicles.

The EU registered 809,163 new cars in September this year, marking a 6.1% decline in new registrations compared to the same month in 2023, new figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) show.

The slump was largely driven by a drop in registrations in all of Europe's three largest car markets - France (-11.1%), Italy (-10.7%), and Germany (-7%), even as registrations increased by 6.3% in Spain, the EU's fourth largest market.

The slump sits within the wider context of a slowdown in sales of electric vehicles that has seen the EU register 5.8% fewer battery electric vehicles in the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same period last year.

New registrations of all cars inside the EU, meanwhile, increased in the first nine months of 2024, by 0.6%, to 7,989,776 - mainly due to a sharp 20.1% increase in registrations of new hybrid electric vehicles, to 2,404,532.

The higher hybrid registrations helped offset slower registrations of all other major categories of cars, including battery electric vehicles (-5.8%), plug-in hybrid (-8.1%), petrol (-4.4%) and diesel (11.1%) vehicles, the ACEA figures show.

Stellantis $(STLA)$ - which owns car manufacturers including Peugeot, Citroen, and Alfa Romeo - has suffered the sharpest drop in sales this year, with new registrations in September now down 27.1% year-over-year, to 120,582,

Volkswagen (XE:VOW), by contrast, saw new registrations increase slightly by 0.3% in September, to 216,577, in what saw the German car manufacturer secure an even sharper lead as the EU's top carmaker with a 26.8% share of the EU market versus Stellantis' 14.9% share.

Renault (FR:RNO) - which also owns car manufacturers Dacia and Alpine - saw its September sales drop 1.8% to 100,613, even as BMW (XE:BMW) saw 5.1% increase in registrations of its new cars to 81,909 last month.

Jaguar Land Rover Group - which owns Land Rover and Jaguar - also saw a 30.7% drop in new registrations, to 4,417, as Mercedes Benz (XE:MBG) saw new registrations of its cars fall 7.3% to 48,972 in September this year.

-Louis Goss

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October 22, 2024 05:05 ET (09:05 GMT)

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