New car registrations drop in September – truck boom

Although new car registrations increased significantly by 12.1 percent year-on-year to 182,886 new cars in the January-September period, there was a setback in September. With 19,840 new cars registered, the number of registered cars decreased by 4.3 percent compared to last year. There was a 59 percent increase in the N1 and N2 truck weight classes (up to 3.5 tonnes and up to 12 tonnes gross weight, respectively), but this was also due to tax changes in September of the previous year.

But there was also a 17.4 percent increase for semi-trailer tractors, which are mainly used for transportation. On the other hand, farmers were cautious in September, as tractor sales fell by 20.7 percent. The boom in mobile homes also ended in September — minus 8.8 percent in new registrations year over year. Motorcycles are selling like hotcakes – an 11 percent increase for new bikes. A total of 27,820 new vehicles were registered, an increase of 1.2 percent compared to September 2022.

There was little reason to be happy for diesel fans in September either, with registrations down 21.3 percent, while petrol engines fell 13.4 percent. But there is also a stagnation in pure electric vehicles, with registrations down 6.5 percent. On the other hand, gasoline-electric hybrids are booming with an increase of 33 percent, while diesel hybrids have grown by 9.4 percent. What is striking is that electric cars surpassed diesel records in September for the fifth time in a row, and this was the case as recently as the previous month.

A look at this year shows that vehicle registrations rose sharply from January to September compared to the previous year. A total of 268,147 cars were newly registered this year by September (plus 11.8 percent). The highest increase was 34.8 percent in alternative energy vehicles, which reached 47.2 percent, accounting for nearly half of all new car registrations from January to September 2023.

Among the ten most important car brands, Volkswagen held a share of 14.3 percent. This was followed by the group’s subsidiary Skoda with 9.9, BMW with 7.0, and its sister company Volkswagen Audi with a share of 6.8 percent.