Dutch car sales continue to sink due to chip shortage and "fragile economic recovery"

Significantly fewer cars were sold last month compared to July 2020, branch organizations BOVAG, RAI Vereniging and the statistics bureau RDB reported, according to the ANP.

“Last year was downright dramatic”, a BOVAG spokesperson said. “We expected this year to be slightly better but we are confronted with problems from all sides.” In the past month, 27 thousand new cars had their license plates registered. A decrease of 22 percent compared to July 2020.

The reason behind the drop in car sales was said to be a mix of a “fragile economic recovery”, slow delivery times due to coronavirus restrictions and a global shortage of computer chips. The global chip shortage has led to producers being able to deliver far fewer cars than expected.

The total number of car sales in the first seven months declined this year by 1.5 compared to 2020.

The majority of new cars in the Netherlands are acquired for business purposes, such as lease cars for employees or for entrepreneurs themselves. Yet, many employees are still working from home and therefore not in need of a car at the moment. “This is what we mean with fragile economic recovery”, the BOWAG spokesperson said.

In the first seven months, 190 thousand new cars were registered. The number one seller last month proved to be the Kia e-Niro with 1,166 cars sold in July 2021.