Car registrations: 2022 closes at -9.5%. Data and analytics

After the first seven nightmare months, the auto market raised its head by stringing together five months of positive data, which did not smooth out the accumulated liabilities. All data and analysis

Andrea Tartaglia

@
andrea_tarta

January 02

– Milan

The Italian auto market pulls its sprint in December as well, reducing losses, without however being able to eliminate the heavy deficit accumulated in the first seven months of the year, when the registrations of new cars sank, reaching -20% in July compared to the same period of 2021. Then a slow but constant recovery, between August and December the deficit was more than halved, closing 2022 at 1,335,487 new plates against 1,475,411, 9.5% less. A sigh of relief, of course, but a figure with a series of underlying elements that are rather worrying.

BAD PRIVATE, FLY THE rental

The first concerns the sales channels, specifically that of private individuals, historically the most active and substantial as well as the one that had pushed the market into the difficult pandemic phase, which in 2022 lost 15.6% of registrations going from 922,888 in 2021 to 778,697 of 2022. The driving force behind the recovery was long-term leasing which grew by 18% (308,108 units), while short-term leasing suffered with -17% (52,493), paying the price for the decisive renewal of the fleets carried out last year. Even the corporate channel does better than the market average with 82,976 license plates (-1%).

ELECTRIC BRAKING, HYBRIDS GOOD

The other element on which to turn the spotlight is the decrease in electric car registrations, the Italian one is the only European market in which there is a decline from 67,533 units in 2021 to 49,536 in 2022 (-26%). The main share goes to hybrid engines (full and mild) with 454,989 registration plates (+6.4% compared to the previous year). Among the traditional fuel systems, petrol stood at 366,822 (-16.2%), diesel at 266,667 (-20.1%), LPG with 118,791 units (+10.2%) against the trend, while car registrations fell methane fell to 10,724 (+-65%) due to the surge in the price of natural gas.

UNRAE: “MORE RESOURCES FOR TRANSITION”

The analysis by Michele Crisci, president of the association that brings together car manufacturers (Unrae), emphasizes the lack of institutional attention to the transition towards sustainable mobility: “Faced with this far from exciting picture, it is a pity that in a such an important moment of profound change in the automotive world, nothing new is foreseen in the Budget law just approved for a sector that must rapidly face a profound industrial and commercial reconversion of the supply chain to support the transition towards sustainable mobility. Although appreciable, what has been done so far is not enough and we hope that improvement measures can soon be envisaged to achieve this goal”.

FEDERAUTO: “REVIEW INCENTIVE RULES”

Even Federauto, which represents the car dealerships, commented on the data on registrations by the mouth of the president Adolfo De Stefani Cosentino: “It’s time for evaluations and we can sum up the year that has just ended: 2022 was certainly not a good year for the transition to electric. In 2022, unfortunately, the policy of contributions to the scrapping and purchase of green vehicles decided last April and modified in the middle of the summer, was not found to be effective considering that at the end of the year there are surpluses of resources exceeding 270 million euros in the 0-20 and 21-60 g/km ranges of CO2 and over 8.5 million for N1 and N2 commercial vehicles, proving that something went wrong in the regulatory framework for disbursement and with respect to actual needs of the market.



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