Cars and Drivers

European Auto Sales Decline Continued in October

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The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) on Thursday reported new vehicle registration totals in the European Union for the month of October. Sales declined by 7.3% year over year in the month. The ACEA continues to attribute the sales drop to the September 1 implementation of new emissions and fuel-consumption testing procedures that drove sales much higher in July and August as automakers and dealers cleared out noncompliant vehicles.

Overall monthly sales totaled 1.08 million vehicles and sales for the first 10 months of 2018 totaled 13.04 million, an increase of 1.6% compared with the same period in 2017.

Over the prior three months, new registrations fell by 23.5% in September after rising by 31.2% in August. July sales were up 10.5% year over year.

Of the Detroit Three, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) saw its October market share in the EU dip to 6.0% from 6.4% in October 2017. Unit sales totaled 64,571, down by 13.6% year over year. Sales of the Fiat brand fell by 15.5%, while Jeep sales rose by 11.5%.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sold 76,501 units in October, a year-over-year decline of 0.7% for the month. The company’s October market share rang in at 7.1%, up from 6.6% last year.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) has left the EU market and had sales of just 222 units in October. GM stopped selling vehicles in Europe in July of 2017.

The top-selling maker in the EU is Volkswagen, which sold 225,415 vehicles in October, down 21.5% year over year for the month. VW’s market share for the month totaled 20.8%, down from 24.5% in October 2017.

PSA Group, makers of Peugeot and Citroen among other brands, posted an October sales decrease of 0.7% to 188,151 units. The company’s market share increased from 16.2% to 17.4%.

Renault Group posted a volume decline of 14.9% to 105,519 units in October and its year-over-year share dropped from 10.6% to9.7% in the month.

BMW Group’s market share increased in October from 6.1% a year ago to 7.6%. The company sold 81,983 units last month, up 14.5% compared with year-ago October sales of 71,630.

Daimler also posted a market share increase last month, rising from 6.6% in October 2017 to 7.6%, with sales totaling 82,785 units. On a volume basis, sales rose 7.5% year over year.

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) posted a market share of 5.4% in October, up from 4.7% a year ago. Sales volume increased by 5.9% to 58,237 units.

For the month of October, the Germany was the volume leader with more than 252,000 units sold (down 7.4% year over year for the month), followed by France with sales of nearly 174,000 (down 1.5%), the United Kingdom with more than 153,000 sales (down 2.9%) and the Italy with more than 146,000 vehicles sold (down 7.4%).

EU sales totaled 15.14 million units in 2017, compared with 2016 sales for the 27 EU members of 14.64 million, a year-over-year increase of 3.4%.

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