by VINCENZO BORGOMEO
With 111,136 cars registered (compared to the 104,965 registrations recorded in the same month of the previous year), the car market in Italy recorded an increase of 5.88%. The year thus ends without parties, without fireworks because 2023 recorded a +19.0% with 1,566,448 new cars registered, a consistent growth with around 250,000 more units compared to the 1,316,773 in 2022, but still over 350,000 cars behind (-18.3%) compared to 2019.
Disaster, or almost, from an environmental point of view: in December electric cars reached 6.0% and plug-in hybrids 4.0%, but the entire year ended with BEVs stuck at a paltry 4 .2% and PHEVs at 4.4%, light years away from the highest shares not only of the Major Markets of Europe but also of countries with GDP per capita at a purchasing power parity lower than Italy. And this delay comes with a price. You pay dearly in terms of average CO2 emissions which, contrary to the reduction trend imposed by European standards, even grew in the whole of 2023 to 119.5 g/Km (+0.7%).
Thus, petrol cars closed 2023 with growth at 28.3% share (+0.8 points) and a month of December with 1/4 more registrations (+4.7 percentage points). A record. Diesel, on the other hand, drops constantly. It is now at 17.8% share in full 2023 (-2.1 pp), with December down nearly 5 points to 15.6%. Hybrids gain 2.1 points and close the year at 36.2% share (35.2% in December), with 10.0% for the “full” hybrids and 26.2% for the “mild” ones hybrid. BEV cars, as anticipated, close the year 2023 with a 4.2% share, half a point more than 2022 (6% in December alone), PHEVs retreat to 4.4% compared to a year ago (-0 .7 pp, 4.0% in December).
But now super incentives are about to arrive. The market will therefore certainly provide a booster: “During the month, Minister Adolfo Urso announced the preparation of a Prime Ministerial Decree to amend the incentive rules for 2024. But – he points out the President of UNRAE Michele Crisci – “in light of the bureaucratic approval and ratification times by the institutions involved and the need to update the Invitalia Platform, the risk that the new incentives will not be operational in the short term is very strong and worrying, a situation which would lead to a further slowdown or to market paralysis”.
The issue of battery-powered cars, however, is hot: “Our market remains little attracted to electric cars (in 2023 they closed at 4.22% share, the lowest in all of Europe) – comments Salvatore Saladino, Country Manager of Dataforce Italy – “I would say 'resistant' to the growth of electric cars, with most market experts blaming infrastructure for this delay. Yet, I remain convinced that the infrastructure is not the biggest problem, the problem lies in the story that continues to be told about this story and who amplifies it.” “Simply – concludes Saladino – I believe that today the electric is not yet superior to the endothermic in the overall balance of usability and usability. I am equally certain that the time will come when electric cars will be superior to ICE cars in all respects, but today this is not the case and once the wave of 'early adopters' has run out, any person with common sense is not willing to pay even 50%. % more for a product which, if it really wanted to become a mass product today, should cost 30% less. Go and see that Italy, bringing up the rear in Europe on this issue, is instead the most intelligent, the one that in the end, thanks to the silence of consumers who don't buy, will make it clear that the transition path cannot be done with slogans politicians and above all at the expense of the people, of the quality and sustainability of their lives”.
“2024 can and must be the year of change of pace for the Italian car market, but at the moment there is great apprehension among the players in the supply chain and a lot of confusion among citizens,” he explains the general secretary of Motus-E, Francesco Naso, observing that “unfortunately the announcement of the remodulation of car incentives was not followed by a timely formalization of the availability of resources, which on the one hand risks creating chaos among operators, who do not yet have information on the new ecobonus platform, and on the other to paralyze the market, because potential buyers are naturally inclined to wait for the new concessions before deciding how to proceed”.
In any case when it comes to numbers, as he points out Roberto Vavassori, President of ANFIA, “In the last month of the year just ended, the Italian car market remains positive, but – also due to two fewer working days in December 2023 compared to December 2022 (18 days against 20) – growth slows down (+5 .9%)”.
And the dealers? They suffer, 2023 was a very difficult year for them. “It closes a very tiring year – he explains Adolfo De Stefani Cosentino, President of Federauto, the Federation of car dealers – especially with the run-up to electric which remains at an asphyxiated share, rising to 4.2% from 3.7% in 2022, and which places Italy significantly behind the rest of Europe. The December result was influenced by the announced revision of the Ecobonus and the availability of new resources for the 61-135 g/km of CO2 range starting from 2024 which, in fact, led to a postponement of purchases until the new year” .
Coming to the forecasts, Gian Primo Quagliano, president of the Promotor Study Center, declared that “the recovery from August 2022 is running out and that the car market is entering a substantial and not short-term stagnation with the prospect for 2024 of a volume of registrations aligned with that of 2023 and, that is, of a volume of registrations of 1,573,000 units, a level that the Promotor Study Center has determined also thanks to the participation of dealers in its monthly economic survey. From this survey it appears, among other things, that in December dealers predicted by a very large majority that in the near future car sales will remain at 2023 levels”.
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