Stalled car market in Europe, Germany and France hurt. Stellantis -5.9%
The sector recovers in March but remains at -0.4% for the quarter. Car registrations up 23%, among car makers Saic overtakes Volvo
2' min read
2' min read
The car market in Europe is in the doldrums, with registrations in the area (EU, EFTA and UK) in March up 2.8% over the same month in 2024 (to 1.422,628 million), but with the first quarter of the year at last year's levels (-0.4%). A market that veers into decidedly more negative territory if we take away the data recorded in the UK, where the market grew by 12% for the month and by more than 6% since the beginning of the year. Still, we are talking about a sector that is losing over 18% on 2019 and is therefore struggling to regain pre-pandemic levels.
Sales are stagnating at 2024 levels and there are no conditions for a recovery to pre-crisis levels, points out the Centro Studi Promotor led by Gian Primo Quagliano. The crisis then affects all Western European countries. France and Germany lost 7.8% and 4.3% respectively, while Spain, on the other hand, ran and recovered 14% of volumes from the beginning of the year and jumped 23% in the month. Italy recovered ground in March (+6.3%) but remained in negative territory in the January-March period.
Looking instead at the car manufacturers, there was a good result for the Volkswagen Group (+10.3%) and Renault (+13%), while Stellantis recorded a drop in volumes of 5.9% for the month, down 12% since the beginning of the year. Jeep recovered in the month and gained 14% more registrations, Peugeot also did well, and Alfa Romeo saw its volumes increase by more than a third since the start of the year thanks to the launch of the Junior. Fiat and Lancia, on the other hand, did not restart. Hyundai and Toyota are also doing badly, while BMW is floating on 2024 volumes and Mercedes has lost 5% since the start of the year.
Among the new comers, Saic Motor is close to a 3% market share for the month and overtakes Volvo, with a growth trend of 33% since the beginning of the year, while Tesla is in the opposite situation as it loses more than 37% of its market share and slips below 2%.
The market share of full electric cars in 2025 is recovering after the contraction suffered in 2024 due to the lack of purchase incentives in several countries. In the first quarter of this year, the market share of bev models rose to 17 per cent compared to 13.2 per cent in the same quarter of 2024, with significant peaks in countries such as the UK where the share exceeded 20 per cent. In total, registrations of electric models grew by 23.6% for the month, 28% for the entire quarter.
