‘EU car sales will bounce back slightly in 2023’

For years, sales of new passenger cars in the EU had been fairly stable at between 13 and over 15 million units per year, until corona threw a spanner in the works. In 2020, the market fell by more than a quarter and just under 10 million (9.92 million) new passenger cars were sold in the EU. In 2021 (largely due to the chip shortage) some more went off and the counter got stuck at 9.7 million. The low point then only came last year with 9.26 million units, the lowest number since 1993. We say the low point, because trade association ACEA expects that the way to the top has now been found.

ACEA calculates according to Reuters on a growing car market for this year. Estimates are now that 9.8 million new cars will be sold. That would be a growth of more than 5 percent compared to 2022. Positive in itself, you would say, although it remains relatively little compared to the pre-corona years. The table below (with data from ACEA) shows the total number of new passenger cars sold per year, starting ten years ago. Important side note: a large part of the decrease in 2019 compared to 2018 is due to the fact that the sales figures of the United Kingdom are no longer included (2.3 million cars in 2019).