MILAN (AP) – After a one-month reprieve, passenger car sales in Europe slumped again in October amid new restrictions in many countries aimed at containing a resurgence of the coronavirus, the European carmakers´ association reported Wednesday.
The European industry registered 953,616 new cars last month, a decrease of 7.8%, and a reversal of fortunes after September marked the first increase of the year, ACEA said. Demand dropped by 21% in Spain, 9.5% in France and 3.6% in Germany.
It was flat in Italy, where the effect of government incentives ran out in September “confirming the insufficiency of funds allocated d by the government to help the auto industry,” Italy’s carmaker association, ANFIA said separately.
Only Ireland and Romania in the EU posted gains, at 5.4% and 17.6% respectively.
ACEA called the pandemic´s shrinkage of the car market “unprecedented,´´ with the year-to-date sales down nearly 27%, at some 8 million passenger cars, or 2.9 million units fewer than 2019. That outstrips losses in the 2009 financial crisis, which took six years to recover from even with government incentives.
Italian-American mass carmaker Fiat Chrysler bucked trends with a 4% increase in sales, due largely to Jeep, while its future partner, PSA Group, sank by 6.6%. Together they claimed a 23% market share, behind Volkswagen with a 25% market share despite registrations slumping by 9%. Volkswagen´s luxury brands, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti, showed net gains in sales, while the mass brands all suffered. Sales by French rival Renault were flat.
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