The French automobile market fell into the red last August, with a drop in registrations of 22.4% and 11.79% in September, in a market that had been stagnant since January 2024 at -0.52 %. Growth has remained at 1% since January. In detail and by category, we see that it is light utility vehicles, which rose 5.29% in the first nine months, which largely offset the decline in passenger cars (-1.76%). More precisely, sales of passenger cars and utility vehicles to professionals and companies suffer less than those to individuals, but still accelerate their decline to -15.45% in September and -2.63% since the beginning of 2024.
Therefore, the business market is also suffering, due to the slowdown in sales of private vehicles for professional use, company cars, which stand at -6.90% since the beginning of 2024. And the last quarter of the year probably will not be able to reverse this trend. downward trend, and the already gloomy business climate has been shaken by political instability since last July.
Despite everything, deep down a trend continues: the “greening” of corporate fleets. In fact, if we look at the distribution of registrations by engine type since the beginning of the year, Private and utility electric vehicles showed a slight growth of 2.48%, or a market share of 11.17%, certainly lower than that of sales to individuals (17.1%), but the latter fell by 33, 3% only in the month of August 2024 and 6% in September.
On the other hand, the decline is inexorably increasing for plug-in hybrid engines (PHEV) in companies, with -36.4% in September and -10.5% from the beginning of 2024 (passenger cars and light utility vehicles). PHEV’s market share is now only 8% in the business. The planned end in 2025 of the partial or total exemption from the tax on CO emissions2 It was fatal for him.
The fall after the escape
Last September, even more electric vehicles were registered in companies (6,751 units, + 13.41%) than PHEVs (5,083 units), while companies are traditionally more reluctant to use electric vehicles than plug-in hybrids. However, the legislator no longer supports the purchase of this type of vehicles by companies: the electric bonus disappeared in February. However, the finance bill for 2025 could include incentives for the purchase of this type of vehicles by companies.
You have 59.4% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
