ExpertEye European Automotive Report Q1 2017 | Page 7

EU28 & EFTA3 Monthly Car Sales Trends to September 2016
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Four months into 2017 and Germany, France and the UK have already seen two months of declining new car sales, February and April, whilst
Spain and Italy also saw April volumes fall. However, April should be kept in context as Easter moved from March in 2016 to April this year
which accounted for some of this fall. That said we expect 2017 to see far greater volatility in new car sales as election and tax breaks,
incentives or even potential VAT increases in countries like Italy will have significant impact on new car buying patterns.
The automotive industry is such a key part of the German economy that there is significant pressure for an EU deal to be made with Europe’s
second largest car market before the UK Brexit. However, there is also likely to be some political pressure to show that the UK is not so vital
and this could see an increase in daily registrations in several mainland European countries to offset any UK decline. The potential 3 percentage
point rise in VAT in Italy could also see a sharp increase in new car demand in Q3 and Q4 this year.
Taking all this uncertainty into consideration, we see the EU28 set to end 2017 with total car sales of 15.3 million units (15.8m including the
EFTA3). This puts the combined EU28 and EFTA3 sales up 4.8% over 2016.
Source: ACEA
European Automotive Report - 2017 Quarter 1
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