Registrations February 2023: Best-selling cars

New car registrations grew by 19.2% in February, reaching 74,001 units sold, compared to the same month in 2022. In the accumulated figure for the year, in these first two months of the year there was an increase of 32.1 %. A figure that encourages optimism, but which is still far from the data recorded before the pandemic (-24%, specifically).

This increase in sales is due to the improvement in vehicle production and in the supply chain, problems that have gripped the industry since 2020. They have not been fully resolved and some vehicles still have waiting times of several months, but the bottlenecks are beginning to subside. There were also quite a few retained sales orders from past months, which may have inflated the total figure somewhat.

As to channels, all increase their records compared to last year. Sales to companies already account for almost the same percentage as to individuals, which demonstrates the boom in services such as renting:

The 138,039 units (still 24% lower than the pre-pandemic period) have CO2 emissions almost identical to those of a year ago. The 118.8 grams per km barely meant an improvement of 0.95%. And in this sense all talk about electrification. Electrified, hybrid and gas passenger cars increased their sales in February by +32.3% compared to the same month of the previous year, up to 32,467 units delivered. With 43.87% of sales they are the first purchase option. Of course, the electrified passenger cars were 10.96% of sales:

• Battery Electric (BEV): +38.2% to 3,297 units.
• Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) +22.3% to 4,813 units.

Despite the increase, the pace remains very slow. With about 8,00 units per month, at the end of the year it would reach 96,000 units. Half to achieve the objective to meet the emission reduction requirements (190,000 units in 2023).

The manufacturers indicate that they still suffer logistical bottlenecks and point out that the sales of electrified cars would increase with direct aid and not with subsidies. The dealers do not throw the bells on the fly and indicate that many of the operations had been pending since December, but that they expect the registration boom to go beyond the beginning of the year. From Ganvam they indicate that “despite the improvement we cannot speak of market recovery. The economic uncertainty and the difficulties in the logistics and supply chain will not allow, at least, until 2024 to overcome the barrier of one million units registered per year.

Best selling makes and models

Barely 10 units of difference between Toyota (6,035) and seats (6,025), which make the Japanese get the first place in the month. Peugeot, kia and Volkswagen they moved in the environment of 5,000 units sold. In the accumulated year, Toyota, Seat and Kia are the brands that take the podium.

Let’s talk now about the best-selling models. Beyond the first position of the Dacia Sandero, it seems that Seat has recovered production capacity. And it is that in the list of 10 best-selling models it manages to place three from its catalogue: the Seat Arona, the Seat Ateca and the Seat Ibiza.

Regarding the accumulated of the year, the Dacia Sandero is the car that leads, ahead of the Seat Arona, which was the best-selling model in 2021. The Peugeot 2008 completes the podium. Interesting to see that the Kia Sportage already surpasses Hyundai in sales Tucson.

Sources: ANFAC, Faconauto, Ganvam