After the negative phase of the first two months of 2021, the European automotive market finally registered a turnaround in March.

According to the statistics of UNRAE, the National Union of Foreign Motor Vehicles, registrations in the European Union were 1,062,446 with a sharp rise of 87.3% compared to the corresponding month of last year, in full lockdown (567,253).

The performance of the main European markets was also decidedly more favorable: + 191.7% in France, + 128% in Spain, + 35.9% in Germany and + 11.5% in the United Kingdom. And what about Italy?

Thanks to the incentives on traditional fuel systems, the performance of the Italian market is the best among the big names in Europe and the final balance of new cars registered in March sees a massive increase of 497.2% (169,684) compared to the previous month.

However, this exceptional general jump in the number of registrations is not due to a newfound moment of particular prosperity in the sector, but considers the comparison with March 2020, the first month of lockdown for Covid-19, when just 28,415 units were registered. In fact, if we compare the current data with those pre-Covid (March 2019), there is a decrease of 12.7%.

On the fuel front, however, the data for March 2021 show positive signs for all types: petrol vehicles (31%), diesel cars (24.4%), hybrids (27%) and plug-in models (4, 1%) which exceed the electric ones (4.3%).

Finally, among the players in the automotive market, the Stellantis group stands out. Born from the FCA-PSA merger, with 251,489 sold in the last month and a growth of 177.4% compared to March 2020, it is followed by Ford (+91.7 %), Mazda (+ 85.0%), Renault (+ 84.7%), Toyota (+ 80.9%), Hyundai (+ 69.0%) and BMW (+ 62.5%).