In the European Union, even fewer new cars were registered in 2021 than at the low level of the Corona year 2020. Last year, the number of new registrations fell by 2.4 percent to 9.7 million cars, as the European industry association Acea said on Tuesday announced in Brussels.
That's even less than in 2020, when the pandemic already caused a record slump in the car market.
Especially in the second half of 2021, the global shortage of microchips weighed heavily on car manufacturers, when production at numerous manufacturers stalled at times.
Deep slumps over the year as well
Over the year as a whole, among the German manufacturers, only BMW recorded a small increase of 1.5 percent in new registrations.
Market leader Volkswagen had to accept moderate losses, Daimler slipped 12.4 percent into the red.
Of the four largest markets within the EU, only Germany developed worse, with new registrations falling by around 10 percent.
At least they increased slightly in Spain and France, and by as much as 5.5 percent in Italy.
A total of 3.3 million fewer vehicles were registered in the EU than in the pre-corona year 2019.
The impact of the chip shortage becomes particularly clear when looking at the December data: In the entire EU, just under 800,000 cars were newly registered, a drop of 22.8 percent compared to the same month last year.
It was the sixth decline in a row.
The largest markets all recorded double-digit percentage losses, in Germany new registrations fell by more than a quarter.
Among the manufacturers, the VW Group in particular had to struggle, whose main brand collapsed by around 40 percent in December.