It is still difficult for the motor industry to return to pre-pandemic activity levels. With a 10.9% decrease in passenger car and SUV registrations, the sector bid farewell to May. This was compared to the same month last year with an overall of 84,977 units.

The main sector associations (Anfac Faconauto, Ganvan) attribute the complicated situation to the microchip crisis. This continues to prevent manufacturing at the rate demanded, which is severely delaying delivery to new customers.

This, along with the challenging economic environment, has resulted in only 318,487 vehicles being sold in the year to date. This is a decrease of 11.5% over the same period last year.

The private channel registered 34,666 units, driven primarily by electric vehicles, while 32,076 was registered for the company channel, breaking the downward trend over the past two months.

With a sharp decline of 41.4%, the rental channel is the worst and most expensive. This could be because the rental channel is increasing the length of its contracts with these companies (without giving them brand new cars), in order to meet demand from individuals and businesses, which is also more profitable.

Raul Morales is Faconauto's director of communication. He explains that there was a slight increase in dealership orders and registrations in May due to the fact the vehicles that were sold are being registered. In the preceding months.

Despite the small increase in sales, the number of units sold is still 30% lower than the units sold before the pandemic. Faconauto reports that the current market situation in registrations will lead to a market closer to 800,000. This is far less than the sector needs.

"Although people are slowly starting to get the deliveries that have been pending for over six months, there are still insufficient vehicles to meet the demand for car rental companies, which will place it for the third consecutive year in an environment of 850,000 units," says Tania Puche, Ganvam's communication director.