The lack of auto transport trucks, the new stumbling block when buying a new car

• Market Car sales fall to levels of a decade ago

New car sales were expected to end the year with figures close to 830,000 vehicles.

It was not a good figure, after the nearly 860,000 cars that had been dispatched in the last two years.

And disastrous if one takes into account that there would be almost 430,000 fewer cars than in 2019. But the reality has been even more damaging: the year ended with 813,396 units, 5.4% less.

It is the fourth lowest figure so far this century and the one with the lowest volume.

umen since 2013,

according to data provided by Anfac, Faconauto and Ganvam, the three major associations in this industry.

The key has been in the bump suffered in December, which broke with the four previous consecutive monthly increases.

Last month, they only reached the hands of their owners

In fact, industry sources point to a rather illustrative anecdote.

On the last day of registrations, a key day for the closing of the balance of many brands, barely 7,000 cars entered the DGT statistics, when there have been years when 20,000 operations have been reached.

A storm that does not stop

In addition, there is an added concern for the cause that has been behind it.

And we are not talking about the already known ones, such as the semiconductor crisis aggravated by the war in Ukraine or the confinements in China;

and economic uncertainty with rises in energy prices, inflation and interest rates.

They are in charge of removing the cars from the ports and the fields to transfer them to the dealers and that they deliver them to their owners.

The employers' association of Anfac manufacturers already detected an incipient problem in 2021, the conflict has worsened this year and

There are sources that even speak of auctions to the highest bidder to obtain the services of these trucks.

"It's been more than a year since we warned about this situation, which will get worse in 2023"

warns Dulsé Diaz, general secretary of CETM Carriers, the most representative association of this road transport subsector.

It includes 12 companies that exceed 4,500 vehicles, "more than half of the fleet that exists in Spain."

Underpaid and fewer vehicles

"The new rules prohibit truckers from loading and unloading, but they are one of the few exceptions left out.

And since the distribution contracts do not allow us to pay them that extra, many are going to other activities where, even if they earn the same, they live better.

In addition, the fluctuations in the production of the factories have made

points out Díaz, who calculates that, if retirements are added, the number of these professionals has been reduced between 20% and 30%.

"This shortage is going to get worse and when the market recovers, the sector is going to demand some trucks that don't exist and that we are going to take a year or more to have at their disposal."

In fact, when Anfac presented its traditional study on logistics at the beginning of November, it already showed its concern about this matter.

Specifically, if in 2021 4.33 million cars, vans and trucks moved in our country (-5% compared to 2020), 44.7% were moved by trucks thanks to the fact that this activity is the one that best suits to variable production flows.

"The truth is that we have logistics necks in European ports and also in Spanish.

As the vehicle carriers do not take out enough, the fields fill up, the ships do not unload and are stopped at sea for days, so the shipping companies end up using their ships for other services," says Félix García, Anfac's director of communication and marketing. .

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