Tesla announced on Monday that it will deliver the Model 3 sedan, made in China, to more than ten European countries, starting this month, Reuters reports.
Tesla, which started delivering vehicles manufactured at its Shanghai plant in December, will export cars made in China from October, in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland.
At the Shanghai plant, Tesla’s first factory outside the United States, 150.000 vehicles would be made this year.
In China, the largest global car market, Tesla sold more than 11.000 Model 3 cars last month, and the American company will build a new plant in Shanghai to manufacture Model Y SUVs.
The company sold globally 139.300 SUVs and sedans between July and September, an increase of 44% compared to the same period in 2019, when it delivered 97.000 units.
In September 2020, the EU passenger car market registered the first increase of the year. Registrations grew by 3.1% last month to reach 933,987 new cars sold across the European Union.
The four largest markets, however, posted mixed results. Losses were seen in Spain (-13.5%) and France (-3.0%), while Italy (+9.5%) and Germany (+8.4%) showed solid gains.
Over the first nine months of 2020, demand for cars contracted by 28.8% in the EU. Seven million units were registered from January to September, almost 2.9 million less than during the same period last year.
Despite last month’s positive results, the impact of COVID-19 still weighs heavily on the cumulative performance of the EU car market.
Among the major markets, Spain saw the steepest drop (-38.3%) so far this year, followed by Italy (-34.2%), France (-28.9%) and Germany (-25.5%).
Among EU Member States, Luxembourg recorded the highest ’motorisation rate’ with 676 passenger cars per 1.000 inhabitants in 2018, Eurostat data shows.
However, cross-border workers using company cars registered in the country may influence this figure.
Luxembourg was followed by Italy (646 cars), Cyprus and Finland (both 629 cars). In contrast, the lowest rates were recorded in Romania (332 cars), Latvia (369 cars) and Hungary (373 cars).
In 2018, the highest number of registered passenger cars was recorded in Germany with 47 million cars. Thereafter followed Italy (39 million cars) and France (32 million cars).
From 2014 to 2018, Romania had the strongest growth in the number of registered passenger cars
Romania (31%) was followed by Czechia, Slovakia and Lithuania (each 19%), Hungary and Portugal (both 17%) and Cyprus (15%).
Poland has the ”oldest” cars in EU
Several EU Member States reported a large share of ’old’ passenger cars (20 years or older) in 2018. The Member States with the highest shares were Poland (36.5%), Estonia (29.6%), Finland (25.2%), Romania (21.4%) and Malta (20.8%).
By contrast, the shares of the ’youngest’ passenger cars (less than 2 years old) were highest in Ireland (29.2%), Luxembourg (23.8%), Denmark (23.3%) and Belgium (23.1%).
In April 2020, registrations of new passenger cars in the European Union posted a year-on-year decline of 76.3%, latest ACEA(The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association) data show.
The first full month with COVID-19 restrictions in place resulted in the strongest monthly drop in car demand since records began.
With most showrooms across the EU closed for the entire month, the number of new cars sold fell from 1.143.046 units in April 2019 to 270.682 units last month.
Biggest losses in Italy and Spain
Each of the 27 EU markets recorded double-digit declines in April, but Italy and Spain endured the biggest losses, with car registrations falling by 97.6% and 96.5% respectively.
Demand dropped by 61.1% in Germany, while France saw an 88.8% contraction in April.
From January to April 2020, EU demand for new passenger cars contracted by 38.5%, owing to the negative impact of the coronavirus on March and April results.
So far this year, registrations fell by half in three of the four key EU markets: Italy -50.7%, Spain -48.9% and France -48.0%. In Germany, demand contracted by 31.0% over the first four months of 2020.
EU production losses: 2.424.955 motor vehicles
EU-wide production losses due to factory shutdowns amount to at least 2.424.955 motor vehicles so far. This figure includes passenger cars, trucks, vans, buses and coaches.
The average factories shutdown duration is 30 working days at the moment.
Country
Production lost
Downtime (working days)
Austria
26,480
34
Belgium
33,360
25
Croatia
–
29
Czech Republic
155,060
29
Finland
11,604
25
France
278,425
34
Germany
605,722
29
Hungary
51,552
22
Italy
159,336
41
Netherlands
30,819
25
Poland
101,957
36
Portugal
41,525
35
Romania
68,673
31
Slovakia
114,632
24
Slovenia
19,399
27
Spain
452,155
34
Sweden
23,464
15
United Kingdom
250,792
40
TOTAL (EU + UK)
2,424,955
30
Production lost in motor vehicles factories | Source: ACEA
