(Finance) – The car market collapses in March. In the month just ended they were 119,497 cars registered compared to the 169,886 registrations registered in the same month of the previous year, with a a decrease of 29.66% with a gap of over 50 thousand cars compared to March 2021. There were 450,846 transfers of ownership compared to 331,779 passages recorded in the same period last year, with an increase of almost 36%. The global volume of monthly sales, equal to 570,343, involved 20.95% new cars and 79.05% used cars. These i data released today by the Ministry of Sustainable Infrastructures and Mobility which mark the worst result for the car market since the beginning of the year after the already heavy declines in January (-19.7%) and February (-22.6%).
The collapse is even more evident if you think about it – underlines the Promotor Study Center (Csp)– that in March 2021 sales were heavily penalized by the pandemic e taking as a reference March 2019, the last pre-crisis, the drop reaches 38.5%. For the Csp, the causes that led to this situation are well known: the pandemic, with the collapse of GDP in 2020 and only partial recovery in 2021, the crisis of microchips and other essential components in the production of cars, the war in Ukraine with its psychological impact, the reappearance of inflation, the threat of a new stagflation like the one the world experienced in the 1970s after the first oil crisis and other minor factors. “To all this – underlines Gian Primo Quagliano, president of the Promotor Study Center – a story was then added in our country that certainly was not needed, namely the fact that the government has been announcing for months that it will adopt incentives to support the demand for cars, but today we are still in the announcement phase. This fact constitutes an important brake on the demand for cars that would still exist despite all the elements we have mentioned. Those interested in buying a car, in fact, do not buy today because they are waiting to be able to take advantage of the incentives. Among other things, a similar mechanism is also operating on the tire market for which a purchase bonus has been announced but is not yet operational “.
“The announcements and the consequent expectation of incentives have in fact been paralyzing the market for months now and, if the Government does not urgently issue the implementing decree that makes them usable, there is a risk of aggravating and further prolonging the registration crisis – he warns Michele Crisci, president of Unrae -. The extension to 360 days of the delivery terms of vehicles booked or already purchased is an indispensable measure to remedy the now endemic problems of international supply chains, aggravated by the conflict in Ukraine, which force car manufacturers to slow down production and delay deliveries. . It is also necessary that the implementing decree does not exclude any of the interested parties from purchase support, thus including legal persons (companies and rental companies) in addition to natural persons and does not impose lower price caps compared to previous incentives, which had demonstrated their full effectiveness “.
“The worrying decline in registrations is largely attributable to the expectation of the implementation of the demand support measures announced by the Energy Decree of 18 February, the first step in a multi-year plan to support the demand for zero and low-emission cars. complementary to a set of industrial policy measures to accompany the conversion of the automotive production chain – he says Paolo Scudieri, president of Anfia -. According to the latest draft of the decree, the incentive measures seem to exclude the sector of cars registered to companies, with the exception of car sharing companies which could, instead, benefit from them. If confirmed, this approach would, in our opinion, constitute a strong limitation, since it is a sales channel capable of making an important contribution to the spread of electric mobility (BEV and PHEV). We reiterate the need to include in the package of measures to be implemented also the incentives for the purchase of light commercial vehicles with low environmental impact, a segment that plays a crucial role in translating a truly sustainable urban freight logistics model into reality. suffered heavily from the impact of the pandemic and the consequent economic crisis, now requiring a stimulus that favors the renewal of circulating capital in a green key “.
The Stellantis group in March it sold 43,293 cars in Italy, with a decrease of 36.6% compared to the same month of 2021, when registrations were 68,290. In the first three months of 2022, the group sold 123,768 cars in Italy, 31.2% less than in the same period last year, when registrations were 180,024. Stellantis’ share of the Italian car market in March was 36.2% against the previous 40.2% of the same month a year ago, in the three months it stood at 36.6% compared to 40.3% in the quarter 2021 .