European car registrations down in August

After declining by 7.8 per cent in July, new passenger car registrations in Europe were down by 8.9 per cent in August. Eight months into the year, the downturn reached 7.1 per cent as the EU registered 8,268,642 new cars.

July results were negative across many countries, except in the UK where the market expanded by 9.3 per cent, totalling 143,884 new registrations. Elsewhere, the downturn ranged from -5.0 per cent in Germany to -0.7 per cent in France, -17.2 per cent in Spain and -21.0 per cent in Italy. A total of 935,368 new registrations was recorded in the EU, or 7.8 per cent less than in the same month a year earlier.

In August, EU markets performed diversely. Germany saw its demand contract by 4.7 per cent, while France (-11.4 per cent) and Italy (-20.2 per cent) faced double-digit downturns. The Spanish (+3.4 per cent) expanded and the British remained stable.

From January to August, the UK was the only market to post growth (+3.3 per cent), while Germany slipped by 0.6 per cent and Spain (-8.5 per cent), France (-13.4 per cent) and Italy (-19.9 per cent) recorded negative figures.