Dacia Sandero model reinvigorates Liquefied Petroleum Gas segment of the French car market

Dacia"s LPG based Sandero model, has been very successful in France since its launch last year, with it sales having exceeded 14,000 units at the end of November 2009, or 35% of the total of Sandero vehicles sold, according to NewsIn.

The market for LPG-based cars, which has been in a deadlock for the last ten years, may see a revival thanks to new, smaller LPG-based cars.

New car registrations exceeded 24,000 units last year, out of the total of 2.2 million cars sold, a threshold which hasn"t been reached in the last ten years. The high number of registrations is surprising especially due to the various factors which impede the growth of GPL based cars, because carmakers don"t usually provide information on their available offers.

In France, buying an LPG based car doesn"t provide any major financial benefits either, as the savings caused by the lower cost of fuel are negated by the 20% higher consumption than in the case of gas-based engines, and the fact that in France only one of six gas stations carries LPG.

In spite of these drawbacks, the LPG version of Sandero found many buyers, especially among people on a budget. Prices for LPG based models begin at EUR 7,000 (just above the price of gas-based models), thanks to the 2,000 Euros eco-bonus. However, reception for bigger LPG-models, such as the Dacia Logan, has been lukewarm.

50 to 60,000 LPG based cars are expected to be sold in 2010, which would only account for 2-3% of the French car market, far below the 10% market share LPG-based cars have in Italy and other countries.

However, starting in 2012, LPG-based cars may face stiff competition from electric based cars made by Renault-Nissan, as the eco-bonus for electric cars is 5,000 Euros.