APIA: The Romanian market of full-electric cars is decreasing, due to the reduction of allocations for the Rabla Plus program

The sale of full-electric cars will continue to decrease compared to last year, due to subsidies cut in half, said yesterday Dan Vardie, the president of the Association of Manufacturers and Importers of Automobiles (APIA), during a press conference in which he presented the market situation cars in our country and the revised forecast for the end of this year.

From the information presented by APIA representatives, it appears that the electric car market will register a 20% decrease this year and will also include the more expensive vehicles, not just the cheaper ones. Practically, in 2024 only 12,500 full-electric cars will be sold in Romania, which in the opinion of the APIA president is a dramatic decrease compared to last year.

APIA representatives claim that the rapid decrease in the value of Rabla Plus eco-tickets offered by the state for people who want to buy electric cars is to blame. That is why they propose a gradual, annual reduction in the value of eco-stickers, so that it goes from almost 10,000 euros in 2023 to zero in 2030. Such a gradual decrease, announced several years in advance, would give a predictability to buyers who could decide when they can buy the car and depending on the subsidy and how much money they have at a given time.

Dan Vardie stated: "In electric cars, even we at APIA have been surprised by the magnitude with which the consumer is finessing the current situation. We expected people to react to this decrease in the ecobonus, but not to this magnitude."

We remind you that the Romanian authorities decided at the beginning of 2024 to halve the subsidy for electric cars in Rabla Plus, to 5,100 euros, and this can be seen more and more clearly in the sales figures, in June they were halved compared to June 2023.

Dan Vardie says another factor in the decline in sales of full-electric cars is the European Union's imposition of additional customs duties on cars coming from China. The president of APIA specified: "It is a very foggy period in the field, from a political point of view, and here I mean cars made in China, which are not only Chinese brands, but also include Dacia Spring, Tesla, BMW or Volvo" .

He indicated that some electric car price hikes may follow, but it's unclear when or if that will happen, saying there are many unknowns in the industry and they are affecting potential customers.

Dan Vardie says that many customers, seeing the subsidy halved, no longer see buying an electric car as "an economic discussion" but "an emotional discussion".

• 2100 full-electric cars sold in the first semester

In 2023, more than 15,000 new electric cars were sold in our country, the best sales being Dacia Spring and Tesla models (Model Y and Model 3). APIA's early 2024 forecast pointed to more than 19,000 cars for the current year, but the revised forecast presented yesterday sees a setback of more than 30%.

Disappointment was high among potential customers and figures from 2024 show that the drop in subsidy has not only affected buying Spring cars, but also Tesla, which sells much more expensive cars.

APIA data for full-electric cars in the first six months indicates that 2,100 Spring cars (compared to 3,200 in the first part of 2023) and 921 Model 3 cars (doubled compared to S1 2023) were sold in Romania. In third place was the Tesla Model Y, where sales fell, and in fourth place was the Renault Megane E-Tech, whose sales halved. On five is the electric Hyundai Kona.

However, Dan Vardie claims that the EV market will be saved this year by new sub-euro25,000 and sub-euro20,000 electric cars. Several car companies, including Renault and Citroen, have announced such cars, and towards the end of 2025 we can hope to have several models on the market that have a starting price between 20,000 and 25,0000 euros, before the subsidy is applied. There will be more models with starting prices around euro25,000 and fewer below euro20,000. Two solutions will be chosen to launch these cheaper electrics on the market: some cars will also have a version with a smaller battery, and other models will themselves be very small, class A.

New diesel cars will not decrease very much in Romania, but by less than 10%, and this also happens because Dacia has sold several thousand diesel cars from the last generation of Duster in recent months, cars for which there was great demand from the part of drivers used to diesel cars.

There is one segment that came out well. In the full hybrid category, the market went strong in the first six months and Toyota was in first place, with almost 6,000 cars, in second place was Renault, with almost 1,000 units. The Japanese brand has five models on the top five places in this segment, and the Dacia Jogger hybrid was on the seventh.

• 150,000 newly registered cars - APIA forecast for the end of 2024

Under these conditions, APIA believes that the market of new vehicles registered in Romania will continue to grow in 2024, but at a slower pace, of only 5.3% compared to that recorded in 2023, approaching in terms of the number of units sold to year 2019. Cars will maintain their share of approximately 84% of total registrations, with a forecast of 150,000 units.

Light commercial vehicles and minibuses, respectively heavy commercial vehicles and buses, remain constant with 19,500 units forecast and 10,900 units respectively.

Depending on the type of fuel of registered cars, for 2024, APIA estimates that gasoline engines will register a 4% increase compared to 2023, thus reaching a share of approximately 62% of the total market. As for cars equipped with diesel engines, they will register a decrease in the number of registrations of -2.6% compared to 2023, reaching a market share of only 12% of the total.

"Electrified" cars will have an increase of 11.8% compared to 2023, registering a moderate increase compared to the previous year, due to the reduction in the value of the vouchers granted through the Rabla Plus program in 2024, thus reaching a share of approximately 26% from the total market.

For the first time in history, electric vehicle (BEV) registrations are forecast to decrease by -18% compared to the previous year, while plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) are forecast to increase by 9.7%. For hybrid vehicles without an external charging source (HEV) an increase of 45.5% is forecast, mainly due to the more advantageous conditions of the Rabla Clasic program.

In terms of market share, the SUV segment will maintain the first position, with a share of approximately 47%, followed by the C-Class with a 28% share and the B-Class with a 13% share.

APIA representatives believe that this year the sales of light commercial vehicles and minibuses will register an increase of 7.2% compared to 2023, with a market share, of the total number of registered vehicles, of approximately 10.8%, remaining close to at the same level reached in 2023, of 10.6%.

The growth for the registrations of "electrified" vehicles in this segment is estimated at approximately 24.8% compared to 2023, according to APIA forecasts, which would imply a slight slowdown of the pace seen in 2023.