The reasons why buying a car is uphill in Asturias: 6 months of waiting for a new one and the most expensive second-hand market in Spain

by time news

2023-06-08 04:15:00

Buying a car in Asturias can mean venturing into a “long and winding road”, as he sang Paul McCartney. As a result of the blockade caused by the pandemic, the world automobile market – including, of course, the Spanish one – has since suffered the bottleneck in the distribution of essential parts for vehicles, particularly semiconductors or microchips. This has meant that, according to industry sources, in the Principality the average delivery time for a new car ranges between six and eight months. Added to this delay, especially after the start of the war in Ukraine and the consequent increase in supplies, is the fact that the average price of new vehicles sold in the region – passenger cars and SUVs – has increased by more than 3,700 euros in the last year. According to data from the Tax Agency, last April the average stood at 24,145 euroscompared to 20,360 in the same month of 2022.

“Given the shortage that we are having of microchips and the brutal rise in raw materials and basic costs, which in some materials have been higher than 40% in the last year, compensation strategies are being sought, such as the commitment to more expensive vehicles , and thus have more margins”, explains Jose Maria Salazar, CEO of the Tartiere Group. Salazar also assessed the possibility that “in Asturias the sports car market has more demand than in other Spanish communities, and perhaps this will increase the average price above other territories.”

The increase does not distinguish between fuels. Thus, a gasoline car cost an average of 24,457 euros in April, an increase of almost 20% compared to the same month last year. In the case of diesel, the rise was 24%, going from 19,868 euros a year ago to the current 24,676. And even greater growth, close to 30%, occurred with hybrid and electric vehicles: from 23,061 to 29,696 euros.

In addition, Asturias is the autonomous community where used cars are more expensive (those that have already had another owner but have less than 15,000 kilometers of running), with an average price in May of 19,982 euros, according to data published yesterday by the platform “coches.net”. All in all, the price decreased by 2.3% compared to April and 1.7% compared to May 2022. After the Principality, Catalonia stood out, with an average of 19,771 euros, and Madrid, with 19,739 euros. The territory with the cheapest prices was Extremadura, with 16,530 euros.

“The prices of the used market continue to fall little by little. However, those of the most sustainable vehicle segment continue to grow and are still out of reach for a large part of families, which means that many of them are still unable to afford allow a low-emission vehicle not even in the used market, something that is also transferred to pre-owned vehicles, even combustion ones, which, being safer and more sustainable than the older ones, continue to be, by far, those that continue to register year-on-year increases in offer prices”, lamented the institutional manager of “coches.net”, Marcel Blanes.

From the sector they warn that prices will continue to rise due to environmental regulations, especially with the Euro7 standard on polluting emissions, which is expected to come into force in July 2025 for passenger cars and vans. The employers’ association of European manufacturers has warned that the adaptation of manufacturing methods to this new law will raise the price by around 2,000 euros per vehicle.

The Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers (Anfac) had already warned that the microchip crisis would persist in 2023, although with less impact than in previous years. His estimate is that this year Some 900,000 passenger cars and SUVs will be sold, exceeding the figures for 2022, but far from those registered before the pandemic.

In Asturias, 10,907 cars were registered last year, the lowest figure in the statistical series of the Asturian Society for Economic and Industrial Studies (Sadei), which began in 1990.

However, it seems that 2023 has started better, since in the first quarter registration amounted to 3,585 units, compared to 3,029 in the same period last year, 18.3% more.

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