The reasons are many, but the facts are very clear. New cars are always more expensive: +6% in one year, +15% in three years. Manufacturers may have to check their prices in the future, even if the trend is no longer to favor volumes. We have just reached, in the first quarter, the worst sales figures since 1980.
With the open days, the arrival of new products, the legendary smile of the “car salespeople” is always more radiant in the spring. In principle… This year again, you need to have a little more imagination to take advantage of it. Automotive trade professionals have only a few reasons to be satisfied and the episode could last. The official figures for the first quarter of 2022 bring France back to the last century, precisely to the year 1980!
Officially, because of problems related to the lack of certain components, sometimes ridiculous, but perhaps also because of the prices offered at the dealership. Observers see it and prove it: the automobile has never cost its suitors so dearly. This is true on a daily basis with the price of petrol and other fuels, that of tolls, parking lots (we are not talking about speed cameras, always in great shape!), it is also true “at the source” with the prices offered. Manufacturers are struggling to get rid of their electric models, produced in large numbers on order or almost from Europe, and have discreetly chosen to favor increasingly high-end offers to compensate. We can understand them but we should not be too surprised by the sad results of the moment.
Tesla is climbing but so are its prices!
Not only because of too high prices of course. Since New Year’s Day, only 365,360 new cars have been delivered to their new owners. A drop of 17% compared to 2021 and 34%, double, if we refer to the last normal vintage, 2019, the one before Covid-19. Count 190,000 fewer registrations…
The pandemic is still disrupting the smooth running of the sector, particularly in China where factories producing essential components are regularly stopped, European manufacturers are still having as much difficulty finding the famous semiconductors and, to top it off, the war in Ukraine came to lead the table.
In the month of March alone, the Stellantis galaxy (Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Jeep, etc.) saw a drop of nearly 30%, Renault-Dacia by more than 15%, the Volkswagen group by 16.38%. Only the South Korean cousins Kia (+4%) and Hyundai (+7%) which have not forgotten to add a few hundred euros to the catalog, with Tesla (+47% thanks to the success of its Model 3, but be careful, it will soon cost much more and the customer will also lose €10,000 on aid…) can boast of continuing their ascent with, it is true, a significant margin compared to the pillars of the market.
The electric, so expensive, now at the level of diesel…
Even if their progress is never fast enough for the greenest among us, 100% electric cars, very very expensive despite all the facilities offered, today reach 13% market share, just behind diesel which falls to a level, necessarily historically low, of 14%. More surprisingly, the slowdown of the hybrid (-9%) in particular the rechargeable hybrid (which must therefore be charged and it is not comfortable) and the micro-hybrids offered by the brands to improve their ” health passports. No surprise on the other hand on the front of alternative energies such as LPG or of course the very popular bioethanol at the moment and so well exploited by Ford: they are progressing to 152% but with a number of registrations still at the margin.