Registrations of new vehicles fell by 2.5% in 2024. Compared to 2019, the fall exceeds 22%.
The automobile market is definitely not coping. In 2024, registrations of new vehicles in France fell by 2.5% compared to 2023, to 2.1 million units. Car sales are down 3.2% while those of light utility vehicles show a slight rebound of 0.7%. Above all, this difficult new year shows that the sector has not been able to recover since the Covid pandemic. In 2024, the French automobile market will show a decline of more than 22% compared to 2019. And the poor performance is similar for cars (-22.4%) and utility vehicles (-20.4% ).
Emergence of electrics and hybrids
This decline was accompanied by a weakening of the market leaders in the car segment. The Stellantis group, by adding the brands that make it up today, saw its market share increase from 35.6% in 2019 to 26.4% in 2024 in France. It remains number one, but with 340,000 fewer vehicles. The Renault group saw its position crumble slightly, going from 24.8% to 24.7% market share over the same period (which still corresponds to 124,000 fewer units). Conversely, the Japanese Toyota sees its sales soar by 24% between 2019 and 2024. It now sells 7.8% of cars in France. Tesla is the other big winner. The American manufacturer sold 7,400 vehicles in 2019. It registered 40,709 last year (which represents a market share of 2.37%).
These developments can be explained by the emergence of electric and hybrid vehicles. In 2019, they represented 6.5% of registrations, including 2.3% for 100% electric vehicles. Last year, this proportion soared to 59.7%, including 16.9% for 100% electric.
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