Posted 7/19/2018 10:13:08 CET
The Spanish market is growing “artificially” by the liquidation of vehicles that do not comply with the WLTP, according to Honda
JOCHBERG (AUSTRIA), Jul 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Japanese automobile firm Honda plans to register 8,000 cars in the Spanish market during the Japanese fiscal year 2018/2019 (from April 2018 to March 2019), as well as that its network of dealers obtain a return of between 1.2% and 1.4%.
The director of the Automobile Division of Honda Motor Europe Spain, Roger Solergibert, assured Europa Press that the company’s range is working “very well” in the national territory, especially the Civic model, with a penetration in the upper private channel to 3%.
Solergibert also stressed that the Japanese brand has “many expectations” with the new CR-V, one of the “pillars” of Honda sales in Spain, both by volume and by the profitability granted to the dealers of the firm.
Honda plans to enroll about 2,000 units of its new SUV – only gasoline versions – in the domestic market during the first year of commercialization of the model.
The executive explained that in the ‘mix’ of diesel and gasoline sales, those powered by diesel currently account for less than 20% of the company’s total registrations in Spain, when in the past they reached 80%.
FALL OF SALES AFTER AUGUST.
The arrival of the new WLTP consumption and emissions test, on September 1, will cause an increase in the auto-registrations in the months of July and August and, therefore, a drop in sales in September.
“It is a reality that the car registrations are growing since the beginning of the year, and the forecast of the agencies is that in the month of July they will increase by 30%,” he said.
According to Solergibert, “almost all” the range of Honda is already adapted to the new cycle of homologation. “We have very few units left, we are not so aggressive liquidating stock because we do not have that problem, all the diesel engines that we have presented already comply with the new WLTP regulations,” he said.
In this sense, the manager said that the Spanish market is growing “artificially” by the liquidation of vehicles that do not comply with the WLTP, so that registrations will slow down after the summer. “Even so, the market in Spain will be around 1.25 million units, maybe go up a bit more but I do not think much,” he argued.