Time.news – In January in Western Europe (EU + Efta + Gb) 822,423 cars were registered with a decrease of 32.9% on the levels prior to the pandemic, i.e. on January 2019. The car market in the area, which had not shown any signs of recovery in 2021 after the drastic fall of 2020, therefore opens 2022 still strongly in crisis. All 30 markets in the area are in the red except for the very small ones in Iceland (+ 4.4%) and Cyprus (+ 8.7%).
The causes of this situation are attributable not only to the pandemic, but also to the difficulties in supplying microchips which also make production difficult. In recent weeks – underlines the Promotor Study Center – these elements have been added the concerns of businesses and people about the return of inflation particularly evident in the fuel and energy sectors.
The only positive sign in the gloomy picture of the automotive market is that in all countries, including Italy, there is a growing interest in electric solutions which are seeing their market shares increase. Compared to the pre-crisis situation, the worst result was scored by Spain, which last January, over January 2019, suffered a drop of 54.7%, followed, in the ranking of the worst results, by Italy which , in the comparison mentioned above, it fell by 34.8%, against -33.6% in France, -30.7% in Germany and -28.5% in the United Kingdom.
It must be said, however, that our country would certainly have won the black jersey in the patrol of the five major markets in the area, blowing it to Spain, if incentives had not been introduced, both in 2020 and in 2021, to facilitate the transition to electric and also the purchase of traditional carsbut with limited emissions.
In 2022, however, there are currently no incentives for the car in force in our country as the Government has not deemed it appropriate to intervene for the sector with the Budget Law. As is well known, on 9 February there was nevertheless an important meeting at the level of competent ministers in which a multi-year plan with adequate allocations was announced (there was talk of 1 billion and 200 million per year) to favor both the transition to the electric that the rejuvenation of the fleet with incentives also for the purchase of traditional cars with low emissions. In that meeting, among other things, the adoption of measures was also announced to neutralize the negative impact on employment and the production of components linked to the advent of electricity.
According to Gian Primo Quagliano, president of the Promotor Study Center, however, it is necessary that the words follow the facts without further delay. And this is also because our country absolutely needs to recover completely in the course of 2022 from the collapse of the GDP of 2020.
“Italy must in any case continue on a path of accelerated growth because once we have reached the GDP level of 2019, we will have to recover more ground to reach the level of 2007, that is the level before the sub-prime mortgage crisis, a level that our European partners had already largely exceeded before the pandemic. A great effort will be needed. closing the gap in terms of growth with our European partners would be even more difficult “, he concludes.