Cuts have been announced at Volkswagen, Nissan, Audi, there is a crisis at Stellantis, the related industries are firing. The European automotive industry is now falling apart but Brussels’ policy shows no signs of changing course. Indeed, some pretend not to remember where all this began, that is, with a purely German scandal, the Volkswagen-gate, which Frau Merkel with great nerve managed to make all Europeans pay for it as Diesel-gate. From that moment on, a campaign of killing diesel engines began despite their great efficiency and promising evolution. Subsequently, among the perversions of the first Ursula Commission there was the approval of fines for manufacturers who produce cars considered polluting even if very modern, therefore, today, not only does the Union want to stop the sales of internal combustion engines by an unrealistic date, 2035, but persists in the absurd punishment of those who are slow to comply. With the result that some Asian and American manufacturers stop imports of those models to avoid paying fines, impoverishing the range and consequently the choice of customers. A modus operandi even worse than that of communist countries in the Cold War era. But since the EU is a stepmother and cares a lot about our safety, the cars currently available on the market are full of electronic safety systems (drive straight, stay awake, SOS, etc.), which all have a cost but very little value, on cars that, above all, are not the ones that motorists would need in terms of characteristics and performance. If you try to go to a dealer to get a quote you will realize that now features such as engine, pickup and power, previously fundamental for a choice, are now completely secondary compared to how much you can discount the product by taking advantage of incentives and above all where you can access the ZTL with that car. The colors of the bodywork are now very few, the setups are common to different countries and often senseless, such as having heated seats or a navigator as standard and a spare wheel as an option. Evidently there must be a European law that requires punctures strictly from the bottom up, and if you cut the tire on the side it’s called a tow truck because the contemporary European motorist doesn’t even have to try to change the wheel.
Meanwhile, the common platforms of the so-called “flatbeds” have led to cars that are too similar to each other, anonymous if not even identical. For years there has been a desire to destroy the image of the car as a symbol and instrument of personal freedom and also of fulfilment; and on the other hand we tried to survive an unprecedented political attack by using obsolete and palliative tools such as state incentives. Nowadays mainly SUVs are sold, true off-road vehicles have almost disappeared – but not mountain roads – there are very few spiders and small hatchbacks such as three-door configurations are struggling to reappear, because finally someone has understood that small cars are needed. But without choice or enthusiasm there cannot be a purchase and the used figures, in terms of transactions and value retention, speak for themselves, especially in Italy: +16% in July, +18% in September. There’s no point in crying over the average age of vehicles – close to 12 years in our country – if the alternative is five years spent getting into debt to receive in exchange an overly expensive object that “takes us around” and which six months after purchase has lost 70% of its value. How anyone could think that a population that lives 75% in city buildings could embrace the electric car by charging it at the common charging station is worthy of a degree in idiocy. In the meantime, however, related companies are going down the drain and we hear ministers (!) say that knowing that 2035 will arrive anyway… creates certainties. What we are experiencing is the ideological intrusiveness of Euro-policies in industry and in people’s lives complete with the mantra “for their own good”, with a constant desire to bring together the mobility needs of nations three times the size of Italy but with a population lower than that of Lombardy alone, without the Alps or Apennines, without narrow streets of historic villages. Worse than the post-war period, when the industry was destroyed but there was the freedom to create and people like Dante Giacosa and Sergio Scaglietti were allowed to work.
Meanwhile, these are the data from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport: in October 2024, 126,488 cars were registered compared to the 139,078 registrations registered in the same month of the previous year, equal to a decrease of 9.05%. There were 545,234 ownership transfers compared to 494,553 transfers recorded in October 2023, with an increase of 10.25%. The global volume of monthly sales, equal to 671,722, involved 18.83% new cars and 81.17% used cars.
