Rough road for Euro truck sales

Latest data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) shows that the total number of registrations for new commercial vehicles fell by 28.2 per cent in 2020 to the end of August, compared with the same period last year.

Double-digit falls were recorded by all 27 nations that comprise the European Union, as the region continues to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic turmoil.

However, the new truck market showed some resilience in July, when registrations of new commercial vehicles were only down by 0.9 per cent compared to the same month last year. There was further pain in August, however, when the monthly tally across all the major commercial vehicle classes equated to a contraction of 18.0 per cent over August 2019.

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Still, that's a far cry from earlier on in the pandemic – new registrations were down by 47.3 per cent in March, and by an astonishing 67.0 per cent in April.

Those plummeting sales were in large part due to the widespread lockdowns rolled out across most of Europe. But now, with several major European nations like France and Spain (and Britain) now bracing for a second wave, the threat of further lockdowns looms large.

Digging a bit deeper, registrations of new LCVs have fallen by 26.7 per cent over the first eight months of 2020, while the heavy-duty truck market contracted by 37.9 per cent and the medium-heavy truck market by 35.8 per cent. New bus and coach registrations, meanwhile, fell by 29.0 per cent over the previous corresponding period.