Europe In April 2013: Up A Tad

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

As predicted by TTAC, European car sales were up slightly in April. Car sales in the EU rose by 1.7 percent in the month, Europe’s car manufacturer association ACEA says. We warned you before not to read too much into it, and we warn you again.

According to the ACEA, “the region counted on average two more working days compared to the same month last year, which would account for the increase.” Actually, what happened was that the Easter week fell into March this year, last year, it was in April. March and April, taken together, shows sales down 5 percent. In the first four months of the year, the EU new car market was down 7.1 percent. A week ago, we expected the market to be “down around 7 percent for the first four months of the year.”

April %ShareUnitsUnits% Chg’13’12’13’1213/12ALL BRANDS**1,038,3431,021,358+1.7VW Group26.524.5274,925250,102+9.9VOLKSWAGEN13.512.9140,010131,682+6.3AUDI6.25.863,93958,925+8.5SEAT2.61.927,12719,731+37.5SKODA3.83.939,45139,551-0.3Others0.40.04,398213+1964.8PSA Group11.212.7116,197129,272-10.1PEUGEOT6.26.863,88569,292-7.8CITROEN5.05.952,31259,980-12.8RENAULT Group8.98.692,63587,942+5.3RENAULT6.56.767,84968,613-1.1DACIA2.41.924,78619,329+28.2GM Group7.78.279,68683,483-4.5OPEL/VAUXHALL6.56.567,26466,037+1.9CHEVROLET1.21.712,40917,420-28.8GM (US)0.00.01326-50.0FORD7.37.575,83176,256-0.6FIAT Group6.47.266,64374,011-10.0FIAT5.05.351,44253,809-4.4LANCIA/CHRYSLER0.70.97,5299,266-18.7ALFA ROMEO0.50.85,6618,457-33.1JEEP0.20.21,5842,077-23.7Others (2)0.00.0427402+6.2BMW Group6.16.463,37365,833-3.7BMW5.05.251,55353,576-3.8MINI1.11.211,82012,257-3.6DAIMLER5.85.360,37754,525+10.7MERCEDES5.24.753,85947,774+12.7SMART0.60.76,5186,751-3.5TOYOTA Group3.93.840,61638,572+5.3TOYOTA3.83.639,20536,711+6.8LEXUS0.10.21,4111,861-24.2NISSAN2.92.830,26028,614+5.8HYUNDAI3.43.435,10634,350+2.2KIA2.82.729,49027,517+7.2VOLVO CAR CORP.1.71.817,55718,594-5.6JAGUAR LAND ROVER Group0.80.78,7107,486+16.4LAND ROVER0.70.67,0655,978+18.2JAGUAR0.20.11,6451,508+9.1HONDA1.00.910,0929,591+5.2SUZUKI1.11.211,63311,784-1.3MAZDA0.90.89,2578,441+9.7MITSUBISHI0.60.66,3885,646+13.1OTHER**0.90.99,5679,339+2.4

On a manufacturer basis, the Volkswagen Group (+9.9 percent in April) continues to outpace the market. So does Daimler (+ 10.7 percent.) Not all carmakers were able to profit from the favorable alignment of the calendars. PSA is down 10.1 percent, Fiat is down 10 percent, BMW lost 3.7 percent. GM Group is down 4.5 percent with a very strong drop for Chevrolet and a slight gain for Opel. Ford is down 0.6 percent.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Thelaine Thelaine on May 17, 2013

    Maybe if Mistusbishi combined their US and Euro operations, they could sell more cars than Tesla.

  • Spw Spw on May 17, 2013

    Mitsubishi Motors sold around 1 million cars worldwide in 2012... but ok, 20k per year for Tesla is awesome after a billion in US Gov aid. :-)

    • Thelaine Thelaine on May 17, 2013

      Lord forgive me spw if I accidentally implied a compliment to Tesla when I was really just trying to slam Mitsu USA, which I have turned into sort of a hobby. Musk has enough money without getting welfare transfer payments from me.

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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