© David Lefevre / Digital
As the group Neg’Marrons sang in 2000 in their album The balance sheet : “Time passes and passes and passes and many things have changed / Who could have imagined that time would have passed so quickly / We take stock calmly, remembering each moment“. It is also time to take stock of the year 2022 for the French automotive market.
It is impossible to say that the year which has just ended was a great vintage. We can even without hesitation qualify 2022 asannus horribilis. Despite a slight increase foreseen in 2021, this was not confirmed in 2022. Unfortunately, the automotive market broke sad records, with a 7.8% drop in new car registrations compared to 2021. And this despite the four consecutive months of increase recorded in the second half of 2022.
In concrete terms, 1,529,035 new passenger cars were registered against 1,659,003 in 2021 and 1,650,000 in 2020 (-6.7%). We are still very far from the 2.214 million recorded in 2019, the last “normal” year before the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc. As a result, approximately 670,000 registrations are missing, the equivalent of three months of activity.
While petrol is still the preferred motorization of the French with a market share of 37.2% over the past year as a whole, electrified motorizations such as non-rechargeable hybrids or full hybrid in English are doing well. Micro-hybrids or mild hybrid.
Between January and December 2022, 332,689 hybrid vehicles were registered, which represents an increase of 15% compared to 2021 and a market share of 21.8%.
The Renault Arkana and Captur beat the Toyota Yaris
Who would have thought that Toyota, hybrid champion, would one day give way to a “newbie”, in this case Renault. Throughout 2022, Renault and Toyota have been vying for the number one spot. Sometimes the waltz was performed between two diamond models, the Arkana and the Captur.
Finally, it is the Arkana (31,636 VP) which takes the place of number one in total over the past 12 months.
Second place also goes to Renault with the Captur (29,921 VP) while 3rd place goes to the Toyota Yaris (28,074 VP). The Japanese manufacturer places four models in the top 10 for 2022, compared to three for Renault.
Thus, the 4th place is occupied by the Toyota Yaris Cross (23,576 VP) while the 8th and 9th places go to the Toyota Corolla (11,931 VP) and C-HR (11,903 VP).
The 3rd Renault is the Clio E-Tech in 5th place (18,965 VP). The other three brands appearing in the top 10 are, in order, Ford with its Puma (6th place; 13,607 PV), while in 7th and 10th place, respectively, we find the Hyundai Tucson (12,810 PV) – a a true bestseller – and the Fiat 500 (11,489 VP), whose electric version is 5th in the top 20 of 2022 sales.
Note the good performance of the new Nissan Qashqai (10,913 VP) in 11th place, as well as the 20th place of the Renault Austral (3,318 VP), which recently arrived on the market.
Other recent entries with the Honda HR-V at 30th place (2256 VP), the Alfa-Romeo Tonale at 40th place (1756 VP) and the Nissan Juke at 43rd place (1527 VP).