EU car market will continue to drop in 2021 due to a lack of chips

Fewer new cars were registered in the European Union last year than in the Corona crisis year 2020. The number of new registrations fell by 2.4 percent to 9.7 million cars, according to the European industry association Acea on Tuesday in Brussels announced.

As early as 2020, the pandemic brought a record slump to the car market. Especially in the second half of 2021, the global shortage of microchips weighed heavily on car manufacturers, when production at numerous manufacturers stalled at times. Over the year as a whole, among the German manufacturers, only BMW recorded a small increase of 1.5 percent in new registrations. Market leader Volkswagen had to accept moderate losses, Daimler slipped into the red by 12.4 percent.

In the main markets, above all Germany weak

Of the four largest markets within the EU, the numbers fell only in Germany, where there were there was a drop of around 10 percent in new registrations. At least they increased slightly in Spain and France, and by as much as 5.5 percent in Italy. A total of 3.3 million fewer vehicles were registered in the EU than in the pre-Corona year 2019.

The force The lack of chips becomes particularly clear when looking at the December data: In the entire EU, just under 800,000 cars were newly registered, a drop of 22.8 percent compared to the same month last year. It was the sixth decline in a row. The largest markets all recorded double-digit percentage losses, in Germany new registrations fell by more than a quarter. Among the manufacturers, the VW Group in particular had to struggle, with its core brand collapsing by around 40 percent in December.

SDA, smi

SDA