According to the data in the latest ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturer's Association) Economic Report that was published today, in 2009, total vehicle production in Europe including cars, trucks and buses fell by a whopping 17.3% compared to 2008 and by 23% compared to the pre-crisis level of 2007. Total production reached 15.2 million units.
More specifically, passenger car production in 2009 dropped by 13% over 2008 and by 18% compared to 2007, to 13.4 million units recording the steepest fall since 1993 (-15.1%) and hitting the lowest level in fourteen years.
Even worse, production of vans and trucks plunged by 42% and 64% respectively over 2008 recording a new historic low.
Despite a 13.8 per cent decrease, Germany remained by far Europe's largest vehicle producer with 5.2 million units in 2009. Following a 20.2% drop, France fell to third rank while Spain (-14.6%), with 2.2 million vehicles, became the second largest manufacturing country in 2009.
The UK (-33.9%) maintained its place as the fourth larger producer with more than 1 million units. Italy fell to seventh place, after the Czech Republic and Poland which accounted for 974,569 and 879,186 vehicles respectively.
The Czech Republic and Slovenia were the only countries to see their total production increase, by 3.0% and 7.5% respectively. According to ACEA's data, the steepest fall was recorded in Austria (-52.6%).
In terms of overall sales in Europe, in 2009, passenger car demand was 1.3% lower than in 2008, and 9.3% lower than before the crisis in 2007.
In total, 14.1 million new cars were registered in the EU in 2009. Besides Slovakia (+6.7%) and the Czech Republic (+12.5%), only Austria (+8.8%), France (+10.7%), and Germany (+23.2%) posted growth compared to 2008, with results helped by the (cash for clunkers) scrapping incentives.
In other major European markets, sales dropped by 0.2% in Italy, 6.4% in the UK and 17.9% in Spain.
Another interesting fact from ACEA's report is the 59% increase in demand for the so-called 'green cars' that emit less than 120g of CO2 per km, with sales amounting to 3.2 million units in 2009, or 1.2 million more than in 2008. This segment now holds a market share of 25% in Europe.
The market share of diesel-powered cars in Europe fell down from 52.7% to 45.9% in 2009, while the average engine size decreased to 1.6-liter, or the smallest average size recorded since 1991 in Western Europe.
As for employment facts, ACEA's report says that in the EU, 2.2 million workers are directly employed in automotive manufacturing, while an additional 9.8 million rely on the industry for their jobs in closely related sectors.
Source: ACEA
