COVID-19: French and Dutch registrations reveal impact

New figures from France and the Netherlands give an indication of the impact of COVID-19 on the fleet and mobility industry across Europe.

France went into lockdown on 17 March. As the new-vehicle registration figures for that month reveal, the result was immediate, and brutal. The overall market shrank by 71%, to 79,516 new cars and LCVs. 

• The corporate market fared little better. In March, French companies put just 30,709 new cars and LCVs on the road. That’s a drop of 63.5% compared to the same month last year, the Arval Mobility Observatory reports. 
• Considering the entire first quarter, the effect is still massive. In the first three months of 2020, France’s overall new-vehicle market shrank 33%, to 453,121 units. The corporate new-vehicle market shrank by 24% to 166,727 cars and LCVs. 
• Remarkably, COVID-19 doesn’t seem able to stop the rise of EVs and hybrids on France’s corporate market. In Q1 2020, both motorisations increased substantially, by 64% for hybrids (to 11,382 units) and by 43% for EVs (to 6,948 units). Hybrids now constitute 6.8% of France’s corporate market, EVs 4.2%.

In the Netherlands, the latest figure for new-vehicle registrations by the lease industry show a similar, but less dramatic trend. 

• In March, the number of new vehicles registered by lease companies dropped by 9% to 16,518 units, according to figures released by RDC.
• For the entire first quarter, that translates to a drop of 2.7% in new leased vehicle registrations (to around 54,000 units), compared to Q1 2019. 
• However, the vehicle rental industry has registered a much more dramatic fall in registrations. In March, no more than 640 new vehicles were registered by Dutch car rental companies, a drop of 67% compared to the same month last year.