(Finance) – If 2020 was one of the blackest years of the last 30 years for cars, 2021 continued in the same vein, adding the microchip crisis to the after-effects of the pandemic. The end result sees 1,458 thousand cars registered with a loss of an additional 460 thousand units (-24%) compared to the pre-pandemic period, which are added to the 535 thousand in 2020. For the sector, this translated into a turnover deficit of another 6.3 billion compared to 2019, and for the Treasury in over a billion of lost VAT revenue. This is what emerges from the “Auto 2021” report, Statistical Summary of the car market in the last 10 years, published by UNRAE and now in its 25th edition this year.
Less heavy – the survey found – was the 2021 result for commercial vehicles, which limited the decline on 2019 to -2%, while the industrial vehicles sector (+ 6.8%) and trailers and semi-trailers (+ 3.8%) regained their positive sign. On the other hand, bad for buses (-27%) which continued to suffer from the crisis of tourism and local transport.
UNRAE underlines the continuous retreat of cars powered by petrol and diesel, which in three years have more than halved registrations (stopping at 436 thousand petrol and 323 thousand diesel), but still represent 90% of the fleet with over 34.5 million units. Conversely the number of electric cars “with plug” (ECV) is growing, rose to almost 137 thousand in 2021, reaching 9.4% of the total: very far from 26% in Germany, 18.6% in the United Kingdom and 18.3% in France.
In 2021, the company car channel, which reaches 37% despite the penalizing tax treatment compared to the other 4 major European markets, where in fact the share is greater than sales to individuals: Germany is in the lead with 65.4%. The long-term rental, rose to 17.4% of share in 2021 and is increasingly appreciated as an alternative to purchase even by private users.
2021 is the year of overtaking SUVs (crossover + off-road) which reach 48.2% and surpass sedans (44.6%) as the preferred bodywork model. The color most appreciated by motorists remains gray (36.2%) followed by white (23.4%) and black (15.8%).
The used car market is growing again, which has over 2.9 million net transfers of ownership (but is still 4.5% below 2019) and shows a decline in sales from operator to private individuals and very strong from 0 km to individuals.
L’average age of the 38,808 thousand cars circulating on Italian roads it has risen to 12.2 years, that of industrial vehicles with PT over 3.5 t and of 14 years, that of commercial vehicles exceeds 12 years and the age of buses is 12 years.
“Faced with this picture – he comments Andrea Cardinali, director general of UNRAE – to meet the emission reduction targets of the FitFor55 program by 2035, as decided by the European Parliament, an epochal effort will be needed for all the actors involved, not only for the car manufacturers, which have invested hundreds of billions to produce 170 new electric and plug-in hybrid models, but for the entire upstream and downstream supply chain. There is still a long way to go, the successes achieved by UNRAE in this last year in comparison with the institutions push us to continue working to give our stimulating contribution “.