In July, passenger car registrations in the EU increased by 10.5%, totaling nearly 1.3 million units. All biggest markets posted growth: Spain recorded the best performance (+19.3%), followed by France (+18.9%) and Germany (+12.3%), while Italy and UK showed lower figures (respectively +4.7% and +1.2%).
Demand for new passenger cars expanded significantly in August (+31.2%), with extraordinary results all across Europe. All main national markets posted double digit growth, except for Italy (+9.5%, with 91,551 registrations, almost 8 thousand more compared to August 2017). This depended on the introduction of the new WLTP test from September 1st , that pushed several manufacturers to offer pre-WLTP cars at very low prices.
Eight months into the year, European car market reached 10.8 million units sold (+6.1%). Spain posted double digit numbers (+14.6%) followed by France (+8.9%) and Germany (+6.4%), while Italy showed no significant change (-0.1%, with 1,365,947 units, nearly one thousand less than in the same period of 2017) and UK contracted by 4.2%.