Scrappage hangover
March 19th, 2010 by Richard Aucock
SCRAPPAGE incentives drawing to a close could put the car market recovery at risk reports JATO Dynamics.
The intelligence firm points to the German car market as evidence of this.
Since the end of scrappage scheme, German sales are down 29.8 percent – and the market has AGAIN been outsold by Italy…
… which still has a scrappage scheme in operation.
Best-selling cars were hit which, given the significance of the German car market (it’s Europe’s largest), had knock-on effects for total European sales.
The Volkswagen Golf, for example, was down 4 percent in Europe during February, mainly because of a 9.4 percent decline in Germany.
This means the Ford Fiesta is edging closer to becoming the overall European top-seller.
David Di Girolama of JATO said ‘if this situation were to affect all markets at the end of their scrappage schemes, we could lose a third of all European new car registrations by mid-2010.’
It is a dire warning given how the UK scrappage scheme is drawing to a close right now. Sales here were up 26.4 percent in February – and scrappage accounted for 1 in 5 of those sales.
Top 10 EU best sellers in February
1 Volkswagen Golf
2 Ford Fiesta
3 Renault Clio
4 Fiat Punto
5 Volkswagen Polo
6 Peugeot 207
7 Fiat Panda
8 Vauxhall Corsa
9 Renault Megane
10 Vauxhall Astra
Tags: best seller, Golf, jato, sales, scrappage