ExpertEye European Automotive Report Q1 2017 | Page 17

With Q2 typically the peak selling period for new cars we expect some domestic OEM tactical action
over the next three months which should see 2017 growth being only marginally lower than last year
at 4.4%. Growth in the construction industry is also expected to provide a boost to new commercial
vehicle “CV” sales. Q1 Light CVs “LCVs” are up 10.2% with sales rising 15.2% in March which is in
stark contrast to the much smaller growth seen at the tail end of 2016. Based on the current
economic and political situation, post the Macron election victory, we anticipate this growth rate
to continue to generally improve and 2017 should see LCV sales rise by around 14% over 2016.
RVs improved slightly in Q1 although this is generally in line with normal seasonal variations and
taking that into account they remained flat. However, we are starting to see a familiar pattern
across Europe with petrol RVs outperforming diesel.
With Paris being one of the cities to confirm a diesel ban by 2025 diesel cars are starting to come
under pressure from the EU’s war on diesel. On the new car front sales of diesel vehicles represented
77.3% of all sales in 2008 but they are now barely 50% of the market. As for used car values, the
French used car portal Autoscout24 has announced that gasoline used values were generally stable
in April 2017 but that diesel values dropped by 9% compared to the same time last year. The fall in
diesel values is understandably most marked in the smaller vehicle segments whereas the argument
for buying diesel is still more robust for larger vehicles doing higher mileages.
Acoutscout24 also stated that diesel still represents 65.4% of the used market place however they
go on to say that 44% of all searches are now for gasoline vehicles confirming the growing move
away from diesel. This underlines our thinking that we will continue to see the gap widen between
diesel and other fuel types. We expect demand for used petrol vehicles to push RVs up by around
3% over the next 12 months whilst diesel values are set to fall by around 5%-7% with the trend continuing into 2018 and beyond.
European Automotive Report - 2017 Quarter 1
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