UK New Vehicle Registrations Fall 21% in September 2008
06 October 2008
New car registration figures in the UK in September fell 21% to 330,295 units year-on-year, according to figures collated by SMMT and Spyder Automotive. Compared with September 2007, the market fell 88,995 units in the same month this year. The market decline is worse than a previous fall of 67,245 units between 1989 and 1990.
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| Change in new vehicle registrations in the UK, Sep 2007 to 2008. Click to enlarge. |
Figures show that consumers are turning away from big cars, with sales of off-roaders down by 41% and luxury sedans by 43%. The only segment to record a gain is city cars, which saw an increase of 17%.
The car market usually changes very gradually over many years. This September, off roaders have seen their market share fall from 8.4% to 6.3% and city cars have increased from 5.4% to 8.1%. There is clearly a fundamental change going on in the market place. Given that car manufacturers need three years to introduce a new model, this is a very worrying development for manufacturers of larger cars.
—Jay Nagley, Managing Director of Spyder Automotive
And this may be just the begining. The rest of 2008 and 2009 may be much
worse.
Accellerated vehicle partial and/or full electrification may help to boost sales after 2010.
Posted by: HarveyD | 06 October 2008 at 09:02 AM
Doubtful. The main cost of a car is the loan payments so its far better to just keep an old used car then get a new electric and with the credit crush few can get any new cars and that likely will get worse not better over the next few years.
Posted by: wintermane | 06 October 2008 at 09:17 AM