Passenger car registrations: -3.2% eight months into 2019; +1.4% in July and -8.4% in August

In July 2019, demand for new passenger cars increased by 1.4%, with almost 1.3 million units registered across the European Union. Looking at the five big Western European markets, Germany was the only major car market to post positive results (+4.7%). The region-wide increase was largely supported by the Central European countries, where registrations went up 13.4% in July.

During the month of August, the EU passenger car market contracted by 8.4%. This is mainly the result of the high base of comparison, as August 2018 saw exceptional growth (+31.2%) ahead of the introduction of the new WLTP emissions test on 1 September 2018. The top five EU markets all recorded decreases, with the strongest drops in Spain (-30.8%) and France (-14.1%).

Over the first eight months of 2019, new-car demand in the EU went down by 3.2% compared to the same period last year, counting 10.5 million registrations in total. Germany (+0.9%) posted a slightly positive result so far this year, but the other major EU car markets saw demand falling.