The European light vehicle market is expected to increase very slightly in 2023
- The European market (European Union + Great Britain + Switzerland + Norway) for light vehicles (passenger cars and utility vehicles) fell for the third consecutive time in 2022 (-6% compared to 2021) to 12.9 million units. But is this market fated to decline again in 2023? Inovev has established three forecast scenarios for 2023: A low scenario in which the market is almost stable (-0.7%), a reference scenario with a very slight increase of the market (+1%) and a high scenario with a significant increase of 4%.
- It can be observed that the very poor situation in the first half of 2022 (compared to the first half of 2021) has greatly improved in the second half. The recovery started in August (+3.4%) and amplified in September (+7.9%), in October (+14%), in November (+17.6%) and in December (+ 14.7%).
- Basically the dynamics of the market should not change drastically in 2023 compared to 2022, given the economic and political environment which should not evolve strongly this year. We should therefore be able to reach a volume of slightly more than 13 million units in our reference scenario. A figure still far from the 17.3 million reached in 2019. More significan market growth could however occur from 2024 with an expected increase of 5 to 6%.
- Regarding sales of xEVs in Europe, Inovev estimates that for 2022 around 1.4 million BEVs have been sold as well as 930,000 PHEVs and 920,000 HEVs and finally 1.4 million MHEVs. Total sales of xEVs in Europe therefore reached nearly 5 million units in 2022, or 45% of the European passenger car market compared to 41% in 2021, which suggests that we could reach the 50% mark in 2023.