ACEA: Car market in Romania records steepest drop in EU in September

Registrations of new cars in the European Union (without Malta) dropped 23.5% in September, down to 1.09 million, while Romania recorded the steepest plunge, show data releases on Wednesday by the European Association Automotive Manufacturers Association (ACEA). 

The Romanian car market saw a plunge of 73.4 % in September, with only 2,771 cars registered, compared with 10,425 in the same period of 2017. 

Deliveries dropped last month on all five largest European markets: Germany - by 30.5%, Italy - by 25.4%, UK - by 20.5%, Spain - by 17%, and France - by 12.8%, according to ACEA. 

The significant drop recorded on the European car market in September shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, however, says the Association, in the context in which the new stricter pollution testing rules (WLTP) introduced in the beginning of last month caused an exceptional advance in August (31.2%). As a result, most EU states recorded drops of more than 10% in September deliveries. 

All manufacturers need now to test their vehicles by using WLTP, before selling them. However, the new harmonized procedure at global level for light vehicles (WLTP), based on data obtained under real driving conditions, generated higher carbon dioxide emissions for certain vehicle, which delayed their official certification and sale. 

In the first nine months of 2019, car sales in the EU increased by 2.5%, up to 11.95 million units, compared with the same period of 2017, when 11.65 million units were delivered. The most significant advance in January-September 2018 was recorded in Romania (31.5%), Lithuania (27%) and Hungary (26.5%). In Romania there were registered 103,595 cars, compared with the 78,769 cars delivered in the same reference interval last year. 

Almost all the largest markets contributed positively to the growth generated over January-September 2018, especially the Spain market (11.7%), France (6.5%) and Germany (2.4%), except for UK and Italy, where there were drops recorded of 7.5 and 2.8% respectively.