Market: Light at the end of the tunnel
SOMETHING IS HAPPENING The market for new passenger cars in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein has risen slightly. With 16,606 registrations, the increase was 2.9 percent on the 16,131 new registrations in February 2021.
This means that the increase after two calendar months is four percent, and 32,505 new passenger cars have hit the roads for the first time since the beginning of the year (previous year: 31,261). There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel.
Pure combustion engines and other drive systems each share the market roughly equally, with alternative drive systems accounting for 48.9 percent of the market in February.
Hacker attacks and missing products
At present, auto-schweiz cannot rule out possible effects of the war in Ukraine on the Swiss vehicle market.
Christoph Wolnik from the Association of Swiss Automobile Importers auto-schweiz: "Like the entire Swiss automotive industry, we are also shaken by the warlike actions in Ukraine. The extent to which the conflict will also affect the Swiss market is difficult to assess. Individual carmakers have had to stop their production lines at short notice in recent days for various reasons - partly due to hacker attacks, partly due to a lack of supplier products from plants in Ukraine."
Almost every fourth new car a plug
Meanwhile, gains by passenger cars with electric powertrains continued in February. Electric cars (2441, +76.9% year-on-year) and plug-in hybrids (1510, +29.2%) combined for a 23.8 percent market share. This means that almost one in four new cars in February was rechargeable via the power grid.
Alternative drives continue to be in vogue
Together with full and mild hybrids as well as gas and hydrogen engines, alternative powertrains accounted for 48.9 percent of the auto market in February (year-ago figure: 37.0%). At 48.3 percent, the year-to-date alternative share is barely lower. This is another impressive increase on the comparable figure of 36.2 percent after two months in 2021.
