Europe's slight rise & anticipated decline - Auto by the Numbers - car sales, production in Western Europe - Illustration - Statistical Data Included

Automotive Design & Production, April, 2002 by Mark Fulthorpe

Car sales in Western Europe finished calendar year 2001 at 14.8 million units, 0.6% ahead of the previous year. The U.K. recorded a remarkable 10.7% rise as car prices continued to trend down under the pressure of government guidelines and increasing imports from mainland Europe. Lower interest rates also helped create this positive scenario. For 2002, U.K. sales are expected to slow by 4% to 2.36 million units.

A strong result was also recorded in France, where sales of 2.23 million units represented a 5.7% increase. The coming year is expected to see a 2% fall back to 2.21 million units. In common with the U.K. and France, Spanish car sales finished 2001 ahead of most expectations at 1.44 million units or +4.0%; added impetus was given by a rebate scheme for customers replacing older non-catalyst vehicles with newer cleaner models. The outlook for 2002 is reined in to 1.38 million units. Of the remainder of the Big 5' markets, Italy came in 0.1% ahead of 2000, while Germany continued the slide in sales, which began back in September 1999, down 1.1% to 3.34 million units. Both markets are marked down for 2002, Italy by 5.3% and Germany by 1.5%.

Beyond these markets, with the exception of small gains in Switzerland and Luxembourg, the remainder of Western Europe was in decline. Light commercial vehicle sales of 1.87 million units, off by 3.4%, were unable to keep pace with the consumer driven passenger car performance.

The broad outlook for 2002 is expected to see West European car sales running to around 14.35 million units, a further 3.2% fall on last year. This will remain the key component in a total European Light Vehicle market forecast down 1% at 18.96 million units.

Whilst sales become pegged back then, so will production, though the extent to which production slows in 2002 is expected to be offset by positive actions underway at a number of Japanese facilities. This is serving to give both greater capacity utilization and import substitution. Honda, currently locked into the U.K. for volume manufacturing in Europe, will seek to reduce currency losses by increasing output from its facility to support exports to North America and Japan. Toyota is working to a similar strategy with its U.K. facility, and 2002 sees the first full year of local output of the Yaris (NBC) coming from the Valenciennes plant in France.

With a full year production forecast of 18.917 million units for 2002, the effect of the Japanese plants and continued export strength particularly at BMW pushes output virtually to parity with 2001.