"Cars shouldn't be demonized: they're still going strong (whatever anyone says), their market outside Europe is absolutely healthy, and if they are no longer sold in Italy, it's only the fault of the crisis". In other words, it's not that you don't like it or that it's no longer needed: fewer and fewer people can simply afford it. The chorus in defense of the automotive market, collapsed in 2012 and still in difficulty in 2013 especially in Italy, rises from the same protagonists of the Italian market, present in Rome at Palazzo Altieri at the round table "The car market beyond half of the ford ”.
"We were undecided until the end whether to put the question mark in the title, then we opted not to, because beyond the continuous demonization, often also institutional, there are signs of recovery": these are the words of Gian Primo Quagliano, president of the Centro Studi Promotor and organizer of the event in which all the big names took part, from the president and CEO of Ford Italia Domenico Chianese to Santo Ficili, head of the Fiat car market, to Massimo Nordio, general manager and CEO of Volkswagen Group Italia, to Bernard Chrétien and Roland Schell, respectively general managers of Renault Italia and Mercedes-Benz Italia.
Even if there is no recovery yet, there would therefore not be the crisis of the car object and its attractiveness, as instead said last year by thethen Economy Minister Vittorio Grilli who defined the car as an "obsolete" object. “It is not – underlined all those present in unison -: this is demonstrated by the fact that Italy has the most numerous vehicle fleet in Europe and among the largest in the world. So people like the car, it's needed, and in spite of everything almost everyone has it”.
The problem, however, is that they are no longer sold. “The issue – explains Nordio of Volkswagen Italia – is that the spare times for a car have expanded because due to the crisis it is not only more difficult to be able to afford it, but those who already have it, i.e. very many, do less and less kilometers on it". And therefore there is less need to change it and buy a new one, which would then be the only way to renew an already very full fleet.
“The season of the car as a 'dream', as a step towards modernity and towards feeling adult and wealthy - says the Frenchman Chétien of Renault - is more than outdated, as indeed, for example, that of jeans in the countries post-communists in the late 80s. However, jeans have now stopped being sold for this, and we have to do the same with cars”. A boom that will never come back, especially in already highly motorized countries such as Italy and above all in Italy young people, who would no longer have the "dream" of the car but that of technological products.
“Some research actually says this – explains Quagliano -: that the car among young people has been replaced by the tablet as an object of desire. In reality, this is not quite the case: recently Aci and Censis asked a sample of young people aged between 18 and 29 'how they would use 30 euros to spend on goods and services'. Well, in first place was the holiday, in second place savings and in third place the purchase of a car. But this is only one of the many elements of demonization, such as the fact that the car is a negative, polluting, out-of-fashion object and surpassed even by bicycles”. In fact, this figure also needs to be revised: in 2012 there was effectively the overtaking of two-wheelers over cars, "but there was certainly no bicycle boom, whose sales actually fell by 4,7% on 2011 and by 19,3% on 2007".
Expensive, though, the car is expensive. And in times of crisis, it is inevitable that it will be one of the first markets to pay the price. “It is evident – explains Chianese of Ford Italia – that An average cost of 11 euros for a car is too much for an Italian family today, especially if you add at least 7 euros a year for insurance and maintenance costs”. “Taxes in Italy are too high – echoes Schell of Mercedes-Benz Italia – and this is a pity because Italians of nature love to buy and consume”.
Fiat's automotive manager Santo Ficili then puts it on quality, also taking a stand on the question of young people: “Young people still believe a lot in cars. In recent years we have sold much less, but our products have improved and this is to the advantage of the customer”. But the real consideration, according to Nordio (Vw), should be made on the car market at 360 degrees: "The problem is not just production, as is often repeated even at high institutional levels: the car is also a strategic asset for components, which involves a huge galaxy of companies throughout the country, and for distribution, or rather the assistance points and the points of sale. The single closure of a dealership makes less noise than the layoffs in factories, but in 2012 alone 350 dealerships were closed, practically one a day, causing the loss of 10 workers".
Despite this, however, some signs of recovery emerge on the horizon. Extremely shy in Italy, he arrives once again from Spain, another country in Mediterranean Europe hit hard by the recession: “In Spain already in September there was a +28% of registrations, and this could mean something”, says Gian Primo Quagliano.
