Coronavirus puts the brakes on an already struggling new car market
COVID-19 has put the brakes on new car registrations, with a 63 per cent year-on-year decline in County Wexford last month.
Sales are expected to hit the wall in the weeks ahead as the coronavirus lockdown continues and such is the seriousness of the situation that one leading figure within the industry in County Wexford, Barry Devereux, from Diarmuid Boland Motors, has said the sector has been ‘decimated’.
The new car market was already struggling even before the outbreak, but the rate of decline accelerated dramatically in March.
Wexford new car registrations were down almost 10 per cent in January, but had rallied in February to almost match 2019 figures.
However, in March there were just 164 new car registrations in the county, compared with 439 last year.
A total of 1,282 new cars were registered in Co Wexford in the first quarter of 2020, down 22 per cent from 1,646 in 2019.
In Wexford, Toyota was the only marque to show an increase in sales.
179 Toyota cars have been registered in 2020, an increase of 37 on the first three months of 2019. The Japanese manufacturer had an almost 14 per cent share of the Wexford market; last year that share was just shy of 9 per cent.
Of the top ten cars registered in Co Wexford in the first quarter of 2020, only the Toyota Corolla and the Peugeot 2008 saw an increase on 2019.
Almost half of the new cars registered were of the jeep or standard SUV variety.
Diesel remains the most popular fuel type, with a 46 per cent share of the market, but registrations of electric and hybrid electric vehicles are up in every category.
Almost one in five new cars registered in Wexford are now either electric or hybrid.
Automatic transmissions are also becoming more popular - up almost ten per cent to 34.24% of total cars registered in the county.
Meanwhile, grey is still the most favoured colour with local new car buyers, followed by white/ivory, blue and black in that order.
The fall in registrations of light commercial vehicles was not as great as the drop in the passenger car sector. LCV registrations in Co Wexford were down from 313 to 259, a 17.25 per cent decrease in 12 months.
Wexford’s figures mirror those in the country as a whole. Nationally, new car registrations for March were down 63% (6,174) when compared to March 2019 (16,687).
Used car imports for March (4,656) saw a decrease of 48.1% on March 2019 (8,970). Year to date imports are down 34.9% (17,471) on 2019 (26,832).
Commenting on the figures, Brian Cooke, SIMI Director
General, said:
‘ The health of our nation is the overriding priority. The Motor Industry will assist the State
in any way we can during this pandemic. While showrooms, service and other activities within the industry are closed, members are available to assist in emergency call-out or delivery services. This will be vital in keeping essential and emergency services moving.
‘Even before the crisis commenced, the new car market was in decline, and this fall has accelerated rapidly in the last fortnight with new car activity down nearly two-thirds on last year. Whatever the duration of this crisis, once we emerge, we will need to see decisive and ambitious action from Government to protect the nearly 50,000 jobs in our sector.’
Mr Devereux said there is ‘zero income’ coming in through the doors at the moment.
He is the Marketing Manager for the group of garages and salesrooms operated by Diarmuid Boland including Menapia Motors; Audi Wexford; Boland Mercedes; Wexford Car Centre and Enniscorthy Motor Company.
Speaking to this newspaper he said the impact of Covid-19 on the motor industry in Wexford has been a disaster.
‘Staff are working from home and the showrooms are closed and I suppose we’re like other service companies,’ said Mr Devereux.
‘We decided to stay open as long as we could but we had to ensure the safety of our customers and staff so we are working from home.’
Mr Devereux said that with modern technology a person could do 95 per cent of the transaction of buying a new or used car online, however, he added: ‘You have to meet to do the final paperwork.’
While the doors are closed there is still a lot of interest in vehicles in terms of people viewing cars that are available online.
‘ There are a lot of people looking at the websites and Facebook and that is encouraging so you would hope that it would pick up pretty quickly when things do get back to normal,’ said Mr Devereux.
However, he acknowledged that people might be cautious to spend money on a new car when the pandemic ends because it’s a big investment: ‘It’s a big investment and people will be wary of having a secure income and that their job is safe.’
‘You would hope that day-today retailers will pick up when things get back to normal but anything that would be regarded as a big purchase could take a little longer to recover,’ he said.
Mr Devereux said that ordinarily car salesrooms would expect to sell between 30 and 40 used cars in addition to servicing between 100 and 150 cars, each month.
‘ That is just not happening now and there are big outgoings but no money coming in,’ said Mr Devereux.
‘We have reached out to suppliers to see if we can put a pause [in place] but they are in the same boat as us.’
Mr Devereux expressed concern for smaller dealerships many of which he said, might not open again.
‘People are worried about their jobs as well,’ he said.
On the positive side Mr Devereux said Ireland has been moving to online shopping in recent years anyway and that might move even more quickly now.
‘People can get a lot of the information they need online and there are videos and apps available but there is still that final part of the transaction to be done [in person],’ he said.
‘We are not fully there yet but it will be soon,’ he added.
‘I am on Facebook talking to people about cars at 11 p.m. at night but I am in marketing so it’s something I’m used to but the sales people are doing it too now.’
His company hopes to open its garages and salesrooms again this week but Mr Devereux acknowledged that with the current time being among the most critical in terms of stemming the spread of Covid-19 he said that might not happen as planned.
‘Last Friday I sent out 10,000 texts but because of the way things are changing rapidly, by the time the last one was sent the situation had changed and the first texts were actually obsolete,’ he said.
While the salesrooms remain closed for now the garages are responding to emergency situations.
‘Servicing is taking emergencies because people need their cars and the last thing you want is to leave someone stuck for a hospital [visit] or shopping,’ said Mr Devereux.
‘A lot of people have breakdown cover and they will tow you in and we will do our best to get you up and running again as soon as we can,’ he added.