Europe moves away from electric cars, sharp drop in battery-powered car penetration
Negative performance in Europe for the electric cars and a stagnant market in the United States of America, with only China which is growing, but at an unstable pace. The penetration rate of battery-powered vehicles in European countries, after reaching almost plus 9% in August 2023, then collapsed to almost minus 6% in December.
A slight recovery at the beginning of 2024, with a rebound in January of just over 1.5%, was followed by a new, sharp drop already since Februaryalmost touching the minus 2% of last May. This is what emerges from a paper by Unimpresa Study Centeraccording to which from January 2023 to May 2024, the sales picture of battery powered car In Europe, the United States and China it has changed profoundly: only the Chinese have remained in a positive situation with a penetration rate of 2%, while American registrations are substantially stable.
According to the Unimpresa Study CenterEurope is moving away from electric cars, the penetration rate in the United States has now flattened out while in China the trend is counter-trend, but unstable, with a positive plus 2% in May, even if it is a lower value than the data from the beginning of last year. More specifically, in the Old Continent electric cars saw two peaks, a positive one in August 2023 (plus 8.5%) and a very critical one in December of the same year (minus 5.8%), before settling into negative territory.
Here is the 2023 sequence: January plus 0.2%, February plus 2.2%, March plus 1.8%, April plus 3.4%, May plus 4%, June and July 3.8%, August plus 8.5%, September minus 0.9%, October plus 1.9%, November 0%, December minus 5.8%. That of 2024: January plus 1.7%, February 0%, March minus 1.7%, April plus 0.2%, May minus 1.9%. As for the USA, the penetration rate, in the period from January 2023 to May 2024, started at 2% and then dropped to 1% in June; a slight rise in the following months, up to around 2%, was followed by a progressive stabilization at zero, a critical situation that settled down during 2024, to end, however, in negative territory last May (around -0.2%).
Here is the American photography in 2023 month by month: January plus 2%, February plus 2.2%, March plus 1.8%, April plus 2.5%, May plus 2.1%, June plus 0.8%, July plus 1.9%, August plus 2.1%, September plus 1.8%, October plus 1.9%, November plus 1.6%, December plus 2%.
In 2024: January plus 1.8%, February minus 0.5%, March plus 0.2%, April 0.1% and May minus 0.2%. In contrast, the final data of the Chinaeven if the Dragon is also seeing a slowdown in the penetration rate of the electric: if in January 2023, the battery-powered car market, for the Chinese, was in positive territory for over 3%, at the end of the observed period, May 2024, the figure was down to a maximum of 2%.
In the middle, a swing: it almost reaches plus 5% in February 2023, goes below plus 3% in March, goes up again in the following months, ends at plus 4.3% in June and then drops again to plus 1.8% in August; zero in October and minus 2.2% in November; 2024 of the China It has always been uncertain, with the January data positive (plus 1.8%), those of February, March and April negative around minus 0.5% until the leap in May (plus 2%).
“There is a lack of a national strategy in the automotive industry and there is a lack of a long-term vision” comments the vice-president of Unimpresa, Joseph Spadafora. ”The only ones with a vision – he explains – are the manufacturing companies that want to pay little for labor, pay zero for energy and want state incentives. However, no one thinks about the reality of the related industries, made up of thousands of Italian companies and their hundreds of thousands of employees. In this, the Ministry shows a lot of good will and is objectively open to solutions, but, if everything has to be decided by four multinationals, we will witness yet another hole in the state budget, layoffs and impoverishment of the territories”.
The solution, he declares Sword-fora”is to incentivize research and development starting from small companies in the sector, to remodel tax credits and to share a national strategy towards the reconversion not only towards electric, which is not the mantra, but towards solutions that also include other solutions. And while waiting for a recovery of the sector, it is necessary for the ministry to exercise its power to force producers to sign procurement contracts with their suppliers instead of open orders, almost impossible to discount in bank”.
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