Sales of new passenger cars in the European Union slumped again in October under pressure from the reintroduction of lockdown measures against the resurgent corona virus in several European countries.
This is reported by the European trade association ACEA. In September, car sales rose for the first time in 2020. According to ACEA, 953,616 new cars were sold in the EU last month, a decrease of almost 8 percent compared to last year. In September, sales increased by more than 3 percent. October saw weaker sales in nearly all EU member states.
Of the major car markets, sales fell most in Spain and to a lesser extent Germany and France. In Italy this was a very small decline in sales. For the Netherlands, ACEA measured a minus of more than 5 percent on 31,988 new cars.
In the first ten months of this year, sales of new passenger cars in the EU are almost 27 percent lower than in the same period last year, at about 8 million vehicles. ACEA therefore speaks of an unprecedented impact of the corona crisis on European car sales.