Sales: Slight increase with alternative drives
LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL The market for new passenger cars in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein got off to a good start in 2022. At last, there was an increase in enrollments in January.
With 15,899 registrations in January, this represents an increase of 5.1 percent compared to the same month last year (15,130). However, the market level continues to lag well behind pre-pandemic times. Between the turn of the millennium and 2019, for example, just under 20,000 new passenger cars were registered in an average January.
Hybrid, electric, gas and fuel cell drives, meanwhile, continue to expand their market share, accounting for a combined 47.7 percent of new registrations.
Chip crisis is the reason for sluggish sales
Christoph Wolnik, media spokesman for auto-schweiz: "The chip crisis is far from over. Demand is still significantly higher than the supply of vehicles. Delivery times are longer than our customers are used to. We hope for an improvement in the supply situation for electronic components and other raw materials in the second half of the year."
Electromobility continues its strong upswing
The new drive types were able to expand their market shares and unit numbers by a large majority at the start of the year. With 2126 electric cars (+106% compared to the same month last year) and 1531 plug-in hybrids (+32.4%), plug-in vehicles accounted for 23 percent of the market in January.
A further 24.6 percent were accounted for by full and mild hybrids without a recharging option (3912, +24.2%). In addition, there were 13 gas-powered (-23.5%) and eight fuel cell vehicles with hydrogen as the energy source (+300%).
