The production of vehicles in Spain has not managed to recover and already registers manufacturing figures below 2020, when the factories were stopped without activity for nearly two months due to the Covid19 pandemic and strict confinement, from the beginning of this year until the month of In November, 1,950,729 units were produced, which represented a fall of 5.8% compared to 2020, a rate of decline three percentage points higher than that registered last month, when production began to fall (2.5% ) compared to the first ten months of 2020. In the month of November, the total number of vehicles produced was 193,449 units, 28% less than the production of the same month of 2020.
The shortage of microchips continues to aggravate the situation in Spanish factories. This situation has worsened as the quarters progress, and it is expected that it will not improve until at least mid-2022. In this sense, Spain is not the only one affected by this serious global crisis. The main European countries also show an increase in production problems as the year progresses. The variation of the total production of this last quarter is quite negative for many countries. Germany (-46.7%), Italy (-31.7%), Portugal (-38.1%), United Kingdom (-39.5%) and Spain (-36.1%), compared to what was registered in 2019.
By type of vehicle, during the month of November, compared to the same month of 2020, the manufacture of passenger cars and SUVs has suffered a significant drop of 27%, with 155,724 units. For its part, the production of commercial and industrial vehicles* registered a drop of -31.6% in the tenth month, to 37,725 units.
ExportsIn the month of November, exports have registered a sharp drop of 26.8% compared to the same month of the previous year, to a total of 169,197 units exported. Until the eleventh month of the year, a total of 1,692,942 units have been shipped outside our borders, which already represents a decrease of 4.8% compared to what was obtained in 2020, a year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The severe shortage of microchips is conditioning the pace of production and the response of factories to orders from foreign markets. Similarly, the continued fall in recent months that the European markets are registering, mainly, is weighing down the recovery of domestic vehicle exports to pre-pandemic levels. In the last month, sales to destinations in Europe, which represent 71% of exports, fell by 26.7%. At the country level, exports continue to be led (TOP 5) by Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Turkey, with significant falls observed in all of them. The same occurs in the rest of the TOP10, with the exception of Switzerland, which increased by 13.3%. The cases of France and Italy stand out, with falls in their exports of 39.8% and 41.3%, respectively.
With respect to the rest of the continents, exports to Africa have grown by 42.1%, mainly thanks to improvements in Morocco (+43.7%), Egypt (+33.8%) and South Africa (+210.22%), For their part, destinations to the Americas fell considerably to 36.8%, mainly due to the fall of the USA (-76.3%), which went from occupying position 10 in the ranking in 2020, to position 29 Regarding exports to Asia, these have fallen by 19.2% due to the Japanese drop (-42.6%). Finally, Oceania has suffered an increase of 0.4% in exports.
By type of vehicle compared to the same month in 2020, passenger cars suffered a 27.0% decrease in exports, to 136,637 units shipped abroad, while commercial and industrial vehicles* registered a 25.9% drop % in exports, accumulating a total of 32,560 units exported.
Production by energy sourcesIn the month of November, as in the rest of the vehicles, the production of zero and low emission vehicles has registered a drop of 18% compared to the same month of 2020, to 23,966 units (electric vehicles , plug-in hybrids, conventional hybrids, natural gas and LPG), with plug-in hybrids being the ones that have fallen the most (-27.3%) compared to the previous year.
In the accumulated figure for the year, electrified, hybrid and gas vehicles maintain their production quota, representing one out of every ten vehicles manufactured, accumulating 11.6% of the production quota. Until the eleventh month they add up to a total of 225,915 units.
For its part, the production of electrified vehicles broke its monthly growth trend for the first time, marked by the microchip crisis, and fell by -30%, with a total of 18,099 units produced in November. Even so, it represents 9.4% of the total production quota of “made in Spain” vehicles in the month and accumulates a total of 181,232 manufactured units during 2021, 50% more than in the same period of the previous year.
As for the type of vehicle, in the eleventh month of the year, with 1,202 units manufactured, non-plug-in hybrids are the zero and low emission vehicles that grew the most, 104%, although they only represented 0.6% of production total.
“The current situation is not improving for the factories in Spain and, although it is not an exclusive problem in this country, as can be seen in the data presented, it is a key moment for our factories. Once Brussels has given the green light to the funds for the transformation of the industry, agility in their application is key to accelerating this change. Together with these funds, we need a set of 360º measures that support recovery, boost demand and recharging infrastructure and, in parallel, maintain labor flexibility that allows our factories to be better prepared and more competitive to absorb the foreseeable rise of the demand that will follow the scarcity, as well as to win the new models of the future that have to arrive”. highlighted José López-Tafall, director general of ANFAC
