In 2022, Italy is the only large European country where electric car registrations are decreasing. According to Motus-E, “the government has the tools to bring the country back to where it belongs”
What happens to electric cars in Italy?
The slowdown in electric car registrations in Italy is a fact that cannot be underestimated, especially in light of the context in which it is inserted. “We are the only large European country to record a drop in sales of zero-emission cars in 2022 and this cannot fail to trigger some reflections”, he underlines Motus-Ethe Italian association of operators in the electric mobility supply chain.
ONLY 49,000 ELECTRIC CARS SOLD IN ITALY IN 2022
In 2022, which saw the national car market slip by a hair’s breadth from its historic low, doing even worse than 2020, the cars full electric 49,058 were sold in Italy, down by 27.1% compared to 2021.
However, the circulating electric fleet has broken through the 170,000 units, settling more precisely at 171,196. A minus also for the market share of electric vehicles, however, which goes from 4.6% in 2021 to 3.7% in 2022.
THE COMPARISON WITH EUROPE
For comparison, in the first eleven months of the year the market share of electric cars was 13% in France, 15.7% in Germany and 15.1% in the UK.
Only Spain, among the big Europeans, shows a market share similar to Italy, with the enormous difference, however, that compared to 2021 it has grown by more than one percentage point, while in Italy the trend is exactly the opposite.
THE CAUSES OF THE ITALIAN ANOMALY
“Without interventions, Italy runs the risk of accumulating a gap that is difficult to fill compared to the countries it should aspire to deal with”, warns Motus-E, according to which however “the Government has all the tools in hand to bring the Italian market back to where it he should be, in Serie A in Europe, without settling for a slippery secondary role”.
“The Italian anomaly of the year that has just ended has found fertile ground essentially in the poor planning of incentive policies”, observes the association, underlining that “to recover ground, one could start with a reorganization of the demand support framework. For example, immediately giving continuity to rental incentives, equating them in value to those for private vehicles without scrapping, but also aligning the price gap for electric cars eligible for incentives with that for plug-in hybrids”.
Another lever on which to act “is that of the tax treatment of company fleets, which should be reviewed to favor zero- and low-emission cars, without forgetting greater speed in the deployment of funds for private top-ups“.
REGISTRATION OF ELECTRIC CARS IN DECEMBER 2022
Returning to the numbers, in December Italian electric registrations amounted to 4,526 units against 6,167 in the same month of 2021, with a contraction of 26.6%. The market share of BEVs is also down, down to 4.3% from 7% in December 2021.
Observing the data in detail, one can nonetheless find a positive element, with the timid recovery in the last few months of the year of long-term rental, which immediately showed a certain reactivity to the extension of incentives to this channel, despite the limitations due at a reduced amount of €1,500 per vehicle.
THE DEALER CRISIS
New slide in December for self-registrations by dealers: -50.1% compared to the same month in 2021. A value that helps to better understand the weight of the different dynamics behind the contraction of the BEV market in recent months.
Alongside the contingent and specific factors of the Italian market, it can in fact be deduced that the distribution of the decrease was concentrated in a particularly limited period due to the effect of the 2021 rules for the use of the eco-bonus, which had contributed to the concentration of self-registrations at the end of the year .
THE BEST-SELLING ELECTRIC CAR MODELS IN ITALY
Finally, looking at the best-selling electric models in 2022, the Fiat 500e takes first place with 6,283 units registered. In second position the Smart Fortwo, with 4,544 units, followed by the Tesla Model Y with 4,199 units. In fourth and fifth place, respectively, we find the Dacia Spring (2,825 units) and the Renault Twingo (2,738).
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