CSM Worldwide thinks that car sales in Europe are in for a nasty drop as governments in the West discontinue scrappage schemes that propped up demand in 2009. That would the third consecutive drop.
CSM is forecasting that 2010 sales in Europe will fall 7.9 percent to 16.7 million units. According to CSM, this “follows declines of 13.4 percent in 2009 and 5.1 percent in 2008, when total European sales were 21.0 million units.”
Careful with those numbers. ACEA reports a drop of only 1.6 percent for 2009, and says car sales were 14.7m in 2008. Now, ACEA counts passenger vehicles, and CSM counts “light vehicles.” If we add the 2.5m “Light Commercial Vehicles up to 3.5 tons” to the equation (quite a stretch), then we get 17.2m vehicles in 2008. CSM better recheck their numbers.
Anyway, CSM forecasts a 2010 sales decline of 10.6 percent in Western Europe. Some pessimists think the drop could be as much as 20 percent, as the clunker-Dexedrine wears off. For Eastern Europe, where CSM saw a sales decline of 42.4 percent in 2009 (ACEA saw only a drop of 16.5 percent), sales will rebound slightly in 2010, CSM forecasts.
One possible explanation for the discombobulated numbers: CSM counts countries as Russia and Ukraine as part of Europe, ACEA only counts EU and EFTA states. Any way you count it: 2010 will be a tough one on the Old Country.
The only real growth will be in China and India. No real surprise here.
Did not the Euro scrapage schemes also remove the used cars from the market place? That was the best part of the US plan (much to the dismay of many B&B), but encouraging sales of new cars while taking used ones out of the cycle will help generate new sales as people who would buy the bottom (the cars traded under CFC) will have to buy up a notch and so forth, until the people who would buy Pre Owned lease specials will have to buy new (as leasing also died for a year or so).
The EU plan allowed recycling of parts. Clunker parts went to Eastern EU for reassembly. The US plan passed the cost of CFC to the taxpayer, a minor point you omit.