The registrations of passenger cars and SUVs in August decreased by 30.8% compared to the same period last year, to 74,490 units, with one working day less than in August 2018. This fall responds, above all, to the effect Comparative with respect to the volumes reached in August 2018, an abnormal month in terms of vehicle deliveries. In August 2018, 107,692 units were registered, a historic milestone in the sense that it was the best August in series sales, with an increase of 48% over the same month of the previous year. This increase responded to the entry into force on September 1 of the regulations for measuring WLTP and RDE emissions for particles. The brands and dealers were forced to remove before that date the non-approved vehicles and therefore the increase. This year, without extraordinary effects, deliveries return to volumes similar to those recorded in 2017. In the first eight months of the year, deliveries of passenger cars and SUVs fell 9.2%, to 883,649 units.
Sales in the private channel are the least affected, of the three channels, due to the comparative effect, with a decrease of 27.5% and 41,657 units. However, in the accumulated year, deliveries to individuals are the ones that are suffering the most, with a decrease of 14.3%, up to 395,055 units. The rental channel is the one that registers this month a higher rate of decline, with a 36% drop.
Light commercial vehicles
In August, 15,394 light commercial vehicles have been registered. It represents a stagnation of deliveries, since in August last year the same number of light commercial vehicles were marketed. The autonomous channel registers a fall of 14.9% in the month, being the only channel that falls. In the first eight months, the sale of these vehicles registered a growth of 2.4%, with 151,139 units.
Industrial and buses
The registrations of industrial vehicles, buses, coaches and minibuses have reduced again, as they had been for several months this year, by 25.9%, with 1,285 units where the main responsible are industrial vehicles with a reduction in sales of 32, two%. In the accumulated year, sales of this market segment decreased slightly, with a decrease of 0.7% and 17,817 units.
Declarations
Noemi Navas, communication director of the Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers, ANFACHe pointed out that “the fall in enrollment is going in line with the trend that the market has been experiencing in the year as a whole. If the WLTP effect of the registrations of August 2018 is eliminated and compared with the data of the last month, we continue to see a sharp drop in the channel of individuals, of more than 10% while the companies remain positive. Even so, the volume of deliveries is similar to that recorded in 2017 and higher than the previous years in the same month. The sustained fall of the last 12 months will mean a last four-month period in which we will see growth rates, due to the comparison effect, but the market will continue to register a significant weakness in marketing, especially to individuals. It is necessary to reverse this trend as soon as possible with a crash plan and stimulus measures for the purchase of new vehicles. ”
Raúl Morales, communication director of FACONAUTOHe said that “as expected, the market has fallen because it has not been able to compensate for the sharp increase in registrations in August last year, prior to the entry into force of the WLTP approval cycle. However, the self-registrations that the dealers have made last month, before the arrival, on September 1, of the European RDE emission measurement regulations, have left us the best August since 2007, if we do not take into account Of course, last year, which was historic for exceptional reasons. We continue to perceive that there is a latent demand and a bag of drivers who are postponing their change of vehicle that may benefit in the last four months of an important promotional effort and the units of Km 0 that the points of sale have accumulated in recent months. In this way, we hope that the commercial activity of the dealers will be encouraged and that the market will show signs of improvement again ”.
According to the communication director of GANVAM, Tania Puche, “the mathematical game makes the fall figure come out strikingly high because we are comparing with an atypical month like August last year, where enrollments soared to record highs as a result of the entry into force of the WLTP and the need to exit the stock without homologation. If we compare it with August 2017, when without the PIVE they were enrolled in the order of 72,888 units, the variation marks a slight increase; In any case, a clear indicator that the market needs an oxygen balloon is that the private channel has already accumulated one year down. The drop in consumer confidence coupled with the brake on GDP growth shows that a stable political scenario is urgently needed to turn the situation around. In addition, the data show that there is no renewal of the park with the environmental damage involved, committing all the investment in innovation that the sector is required to reduce its impact on the environment.