The automotive industry is one of the hardest hit by the Covid-19 global pandemic in the world. The existing circumstances with the change of technologies of the systems and the possibilities for electrification, autonomous driving, “on-demand” or “shared” vehicles, as well as connected vehicles and the still insufficient definition of which of these technologies and at what pace will be implemented globally or regionally, as well as the growing number of young people who have more important priorities than buying a vehicle, have led to reduced vehicle sales. This is a trend that became a reality before the pandemic crisis, ie from 2018, writes Viktor Mizo, director of “Kostal Macedonia” and president of the Association of Foreign Companies with Technologically Advanced Production within the Council of Foreign Investors in a column for the “Izvoz .mk” news portal.

According to him, now all these effects are further multiplied as a result of the evident sharp decline in global demand for cars as a result of the global pandemic, but also the economic recession that the world will go through in 2020, and in some regions even longer.

At the moment, there are already concrete and positive signals for the growth of newly registered vehicles in Europe for June and July, but this is far below the results of the same months last year. This growth is mainly due to subsidies for the purchase of new, mostly e-vehicles or “plug-in hybrid” vehicles, but it is not balanced and it is still not possible to confirm a trend that would be present continuously until the end of the year/ Of course, it remains to be seen what will be the situation and the appetite for buying new vehicles during the second wave of the pandemic that is announced for this fall and the appropriate measures, both health and economic, that will be taken, writes Mizo.