(Finance) – Also in February the light commercial vehicle market (up to 3.5 t gross vehicle weight) recorded sustained growth, and with 18,120 vehicles registered it showed a +22.1% thanks to approximately 3,300 more units compared to 14,842 in February 2023. In the first two months of the year, registrations amounted to 36,044 units, equal to +28.4% compared to the 28,081 in the first two months of 2023. This is what theNational Union of Foreign Vehicle Representatives (UNRAE) In the report relating to the commercial vehicle market (trucks with gross vehicle weight up to 3.5 t) of February 2024.
“The first half of 2024 should be characterized by good dynamism, given the positive context of the sector given by the presence of important tenders, the availability of product and the good collection of contracts. The second half of the year, however, considered the basis of compared to 2023, which is accelerating strongly, it should show a slowdown, leading 2024 to still close positively at around 210,000 vehicles (+6.9%) – predicts the President of UNRAE Michele Crisci –. The performance of the second part of the year could also be partly affected by the new incentive scheme, the publication of which is still awaited in a Prime Ministerial Decree which we hope will arrive soon, above all to give a jolt to the market of zero-emission vehicles which , in the meantime, remained stuck at 2%”.
The new 2024 scheme provides: bonuses for zero emission vehicles both for scrapping and not; inclusion of other supplies (with lower amounts) only upon scrapping; extension to rental companies, but limited to electric or hydrogen vehicles only and in the form of a mandatory discount on rental fees for the company using the incentivized vehicle; confirmation of the gradual nature of the bonus based on the mass of the incentivized vehicle. “While appreciating the reopening, by MASE, of the deadlines for grant applications in favor of businesses and professionals for the purchase and installation of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, UNRAE once again reiterates the need, to obtain the maximum diffusion of adequate infrastructures, to also provide a 50% tax credit for private investments in fast charging (> 70 kW) until at least 2025”, he concludes Crisci.
There market structure of the first two months of 2024, with almost definitive data, compared with the same period in 2023, among the sales channels it highlights a loss of 2.2 points of share for private individuals, to 15.1% of the market, albeit with double-digit growth in volumes. The long term rental continues to drive the market, gaining 6.6 points of share and rising to 34.4% of the total, thanks to the push from the Top companies; the short term reaches 5.7% share (+0.8 pp). The self-registrations dropped to 7.3% (-1.1 pp), the companies maintained first position but lost more than 4 points, falling to 37.5% share, just 3 points above long-term rental. On the front of engines, in the two-month period January-February diesel gained 1.9 points of share, to 82.0% of the market. The petrol engine loses 7 decimals, falling to 4.0% share, hybrid vehicles gain almost 1 point, to 8.8% of the total. LPG loses 0.9 points to 2.9%, methane drops to 0.1% like plug-ins. BEVs lose 1 point of share, to 2.0% of the total. The weighted average CO2 of vehicles with GVW up to 3.5 t in the first 2 months of the year grew by 5.2% to 195.3 g/Km (compared to 185.7 g/Km in the same period in 2023).
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