European Commercial Vehicle Market experiences ups and downs

1625
guidelines for EU Member States on the functioning of Green Lanes for trucks

At the end of September 2019, commercial vehicle registrations across European Markets dropped for the first time this year (-10.0%), bringing an end to eight months of consecutive growth.

However, nine months into the year,demand for new commercial vehicles remained positive (+4.6%) in the EU, despite the decline in September. With a double-digit increase (10.9%) Germany led this growth, but the four other major markets also posted positive figures so far this year: France (+6.1%), the United Kingdom (+5.1%), Italy (+4.9%) and Spain (+1.5%).

New light commercial vehicles (LCV) up to 3.5t

So far in 2019, the EU market for new vans expanded by 4.4% to reach 1.6 million vehicles registered in total. Each of the EU’s major markets did well during the first nine months of the year: Germany (+11.2%), Italy (+6.9%), France (+5.9%), the United Kingdom (+4.5%) and Spain (+1.9%).

New heavy commercial vehicles (HCV) of 16t and over

From January to September 2019, EU demand for heavy-duty trucks went up by 5.3%, despite the slowdown over the last three months. This growth was largely driven by the United Kingdom (+16.0%), France (+9.2%) and Germany (+8.2%). At the same time, heavy-truck registrations decreased in Italy (-6.7%) and Spain (-1.4%).

New medium and heavy commercial vehicles (MHCV) over 3.5t

Over the first nine months of the year, EU truck registrations increased by 5.7%, even though demand was negative in the third quarter. The United Kingdom (+13.6%), Germany (+10.6%) and France (+8.0%) led this growth, while Italy (-6.4%) and Spain (-2.0%) performed worse than the year before.

Over the same period into 2019, demand for new buses and coaches remained positive (+2.9%). So far this year, growth was largely sustained by Central Europe (+17.1%). Looking at the major Western European markets, France (+2.5%), Spain (+0.7%) and Germany (+0.3%) were the only countries that managed to post modest gains.