Growth was again driven by fleet investment, up 29.6% as the sector continues to recover following the constrained supply of previous years. Registrations by private buyers fell by 7.7%, with a challenging economic backdrop of low growth, weak consumer confidence and high interest rates. The small business registration segment, meanwhile, declined 8.0%.
Speaking about recent attitudes to EV adoption from the perspective of manufacturers and customers, the digital garage’s Founder and Chief Executive was a significant contributor to Cox Automotive’s latest Insight Report. He thinks the ICE vehicle ban deadline change along with other factors, including the ZEV mandate, had caused a pronounced shift in the sector.
EV share of registrations will grow 160% vs 2020-23 volumes to 2.3 million units or 28% of sales. Hybrid will represent 25% of registrations, with two million units sold. This growth comes at a significant cost for diesel and petrol derivatives. Diesel share over the four years will shrink to just 3%, with 62k units registered in 2027, while petrol, with 3.5 million registrations over the four years, will fall 12% to just a 35% share by 2028.
The advent of the agency model, where car manufacturers take ownership of distribution, has been a dominant trend in the car retail market as more and more brands consider making the switching.
Cox is forecasting 2,020,050 new vehicle registrations – an increase of 6.1% year-on-year - and 7,350,205 used car sales for the full year. The automotive services provider reiterated its bold projections after just-published numbers from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) revealed that Cox Automotive’s predictions for 2023 were near perfect.
A valued resource for anyone seeking to understand the status quo and learn more about future trends – Cox Automotive’s 2023/24 Insight Report includes extensive analysis from automotive voices in the UK, Europe and around the world. Cox Automotive remains the only industry player to provide detailed predictions for both the new and used car markets for 2024 – which are included in the report.
Mastering omnichannel - a customer-centric approach that integrates all routes to a retailer, including in-store, mobile and online – is essential if franchised retailers wish to avoid losing used vehicle customers. He also cites the importance of embracing a connected on and offline approach to stock sourcing.
Cox Automotive predicts used car transactions for the entirety of 2023 to be 7,154,047 units, a 4% year-on-year increase, but still below (-3%) the average pre-pandemic yearly figure. It forecasts 1,866,540 transactions in Q3, softening to 1,607,517 in Q4. The Q1 baseline forecast of 1,790,034 achieved an impressive accuracy of 96.8%, closely aligning with the actual figure of 1,847,149, instilling confidence in the full year forecast across different market scenarios.
Writing exclusively in the latest Autofocus, Cox Automotive’s quarterly automotive insight update, Regit Founder and Chief Executive Chris Ashton-Green, said answers provided by 3,000 digital garage users show how important a high quality online presence is.
While e-fuels are not available or affordable for general use today, there is a potential that it could be a viable longer-term option – even by 2035 when we have been led to expect that the combustion engine will disappear from sale in Europe
