EU Car Sales Fell for 10th Straight Month in May By Investing.com

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — The distress of Europe’s car sector continued in May, as new registrations across the EU fell in annual phrases for the 10th thirty day period in a row. 

New car or truck registrations fell 11.2% from a 12 months before, with declines of about 10% in all of the bloc’s 4 largest marketplaces, with slipping by an even steeper 20.6%, Brussels-primarily based foyer group ACEA said in a assertion.

In excess of the first five months of the year, registrations are now down 13.7%, a reflection of a sequence of crises that have hit the market considering the fact that the pandemic erupted at the start out of 2020.

The malaise in the automobile industry is a single rationale for the sharp slowdown in the Eurozone’s financial system in current months. The sector accounts for above 8% of EU GDP and 11.5% of the region’s manufacturing careers, in accordance to ACEA.

Of the key automotive groups, only Hyundai (KS:) and Toyota (TYO:) escaped the downward trend. Volkswagen (ETR:) team gross sales ended up down 21%, although team gross sales at Stellantis (Little bit:), which features the Peugeot, Fiat , and Opel manufacturers, had been down 14.6%. Mercedes Benz (ETR:) and Ford (NYSE:) escaped with declines of much less than 10%.

Tesla (NASDAQ:) does not report its sales to ACEA. Anecdotal reviews nevertheless counsel a sharp fall in income in May perhaps due to problems transport from its Shanghai plant, which was hit by two months of COVID-19-relevant restrictions. The newly-opened plant in Berlin is presently generating less than 1,000 autos a week. Tesla CEO Elon Musk advised staff members that he expects a “extremely tricky quarter” in the 3 months as a result of June because of to “offer chain and manufacturing troubles in China.”