Passenger car registrations: +11.2% eight months into 2021; ‐23.2% in July and ‐19.1% in August

In July 2021, the European passenger car market suffered a significant setback after four months of accelerated growth, with new registrations down 23.2% to 823,949 units. The EU’s four major markets showed similar trends, all posting strong losses. France saw the steepest decrease (-35.3%) in July, followed by Spain (-28.9%), Germany (-24.9%) and Italy (-19.2%).

During the month of August, car registrations across the European Union decreased by 19.1% – compared to the same month last year – to reach 622,993 units. For the second month in a row, the largest car markets posted double-digit declines: Spain (-28.9%), Italy (-27.3%), Germany (-23.0%) and France (-15.0%).

Over the first eight months of 2021, sales volumes saw a year-on-year increase of 11.2%, counting 6.8 million new passenger cars in total. Despite the weak performance of EU markets during the summer months, substantial gains earlier in the year kept cumulative growth in positive territory. As a result, each of the four major markets posted growth so far this year: Italy (+30.9%), France (+12.8%), Spain (+12.1%) and Germany (+2.5%).