Registrations of passenger cars and SUVs experienced an increase of 23.1% in April, up to 92,000 units, and accumulate more than twelve months of consecutive monthly increases if the month of March is excluded, when there was a decline due to the effect of the Week Santa, according to the data offered today by the Anfac, Ganvam and Faconauto associations.
Having been celebrated in March and not April, Easter is precisely what distorts the sales data. It caused the fall in March, but in return it largely explains the strong progression in April. The other element of uncertainty, in this underlying case, are the sales of electrified cars – pure electric and plug-in hybrids – which are growing less than the market average.
In the first four months of the year, registrations amounted to 336,726 units, 7.8% more than in the same period of the previous year. However, the current sales volume is still 23% below those recorded before the pandemic.
The association to promote electric mobility Aedive estimates that registrations of electrified vehicles in April increased by 8.9%, up to 10,530 units, compared to 23% for the market as a whole. So far this year, the increase is also smaller, just 1.2%, compared to 7.8% of the total.
Until April, only 10.8% of registered passenger cars corresponded to electrified models. Contrary to the Government’s plans, which aims for a third of sales to correspond to this technology by 2030, the current share is even lower than the 12% registered at the end of 2023.
“Sales of plug-in vehicles are not growing in share and we are even below that achieved in 2023,” warn the Anfac manufacturers association. “If we want to rejuvenate the fleet that is more than 14 years old and sell more low and zero emission vehicles,” they add.
Aedive and Ganvam urge the Government to eliminate as soon as possible the uncertainties regarding incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. In 2024, the figure of 200,000 registrations of electrified vehicles should be exceeded, a goal that now seems more complicated.
“Without the appropriate policies, unfortunately the electrified vehicle will not work in our country as happens in other countries around us that we have to look at if we want to meet the decarbonization objectives that come to us from the European Union,” say the Faconauto dealers.
In the market what prevails is gasoline. Not only due to the sale of cars of this type, but also due to the sale of non-plug-in hybrids, whose combustion engine uses this fuel as a propellant in the vast majority of cases.
Gasoline cars represent 40.7% of the market and diesel cars, only 9.9%. The rest of the categories, which include non-plug-in hybrids, have a weight of 49.4%.
In April, only purchases of vehicles for companies registered declines, of 4.6%. The rest of the channels registered strong growth. Sales to individuals increased by 32.3%, with a total of 37,548 units sold. Rent-a-car also improved, with 60.2% more sales than the same month of the previous year and 25,237 units.
