Belgian new car sales pushes throttle in April

The Belgian automotive sector is recovering, with new car registrations pushing the throttle by +40.38% compared to April last year. With 17 420 cars sold or 10,17% market share BWM is keeping its pursuers Volkswagen (14 681 or 8,57%) and Peugeot (12 897 or 7,36% ) in the rearview mirror. Mercedes hooks up fourth with 12 611 registrations (6,79%).

According to the car importers’ federation Febiac, the positive trend is pursued in both the professional as the private market doing +30.26% better than the first four months of 2022 and a total of 171 356 new passengers cars registered.

Late season start for motorbikes?

Light professional vehicles were also doing good, with +18.61% compared to last year. Heavy trucks below 16 tonnes saw an increase of +30,7 %, the ones above 16 tonnes +16.8% cumulated.

The news is not that good for two-wheelers, motorbikes, and scooters. Figures are decreasing further in April by -4.39% and -1.85% over the first four months. We’re talking about 8 827 motorbikes, scooters, three-wheelers, and light four-wheelers. The bad weather in the first four months of 2023 might impact the late seasonal start, Febiac warns.

Battery electric cars booming

Earlier, after three months, it already became clear the battery-electric car (BEV) rounded the cape of 15% market share in Belgium for the first time. The fully electric Tesla Model Y became the third most-sold car overall with 3 140 units, just after the Toyota Yaris (3 141) and the favorite of the Belgians, the ‘home-made’ Volvo XC40 (3 231). One-third (1 143) of the latter was fully electric, 1 258 PHEV.

Premium brands like BMW and Mercedes saw their worldwide BEV sales also boom in Q1 of 2023. At least one out of ten sales in Q1 for the whole BMW Group was electric. Competitor Mercedes-Benz announced that it scored almost at the same level for its fully electric car sales in the first quarter.

The BEVs’ steep growing curve is clearly fueled in Belgium by the company cars, as shown by the latest figures from the car federation Febiac. Here the share was 21,4% in the nearing prospect of the obligation for all new company cars to be zero-emission by 2026.