The French new car market continued to grow in November, driven in particular by electric and hybrid models, the Automobile Platform (PFA) said on Friday.
(AFP / THIBAUD MORITZ)
The market rebounded in November by 14% with 152,710 registrations, according to figures published by the PFA, which represents manufacturers and equipment manufacturers. It is already recording more sales than in all of 2022.
The economic situation, with inflation and interest rates which have been boosted, does not particularly encourage the French to buy new cars.
But the logistical problems which slowed down production (shortage of electronic chips, blocked cargo) have been resolved and the cars ordered months ago are being delivered en masse, notes François Roudier of the PFA.
Furthermore, manufacturers are rushing to register cars before the tightening of the ecological bonus scheduled for March 15, 2024, which will make the market “quite difficult to explain” by then, Mr. Roudier told AFP .
This phenomenon is also driving sales of hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars (+36%), and electric cars (+52% over one year).
Electrics now represent 20% of the French market, compared to 17% in November 2022. A large batch of Tesla Model 3s were notably delivered in November, followed on the podium by Peugeot e-208s and Dacia Spring.
Diesel only represents 9% of the market, and gasoline still 32%.
Over the first 11 months of 2023, with 1,593,717 registrations, the French market is up 16.24% in raw data. The year 2023 could thus be “better than expected” if sales continue on this momentum in December.
The Renault groups (which includes Dacia) and Volkswagen (Audi-Skoda) benefited greatly from this rebound from January to November.
Market leader Stellantis, on the contrary, saw its market share decline by almost four points, to 28.3%: the good sales of Jeep and Opel do not compensate for the decline of its major brands Peugeot and Citroën, before the refresh of several models planned for 2024.
The overall volume of sales on the French market remains well below that of 2019, before the health crisis from which the automobile market has still not recovered.
Over the whole of 2022, 1,529,035 new passenger cars were put into circulation, compared to 2.2 million in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.
As for used cars, after a slight improvement in October, the market started to rise again in November (+6%) and represents 441,424 registrations, according to the firm AAA Data. The most recent used cars (less than five years old) have particularly seen their sales increase.