In October 2024, fewer trucks were sold than last year

After the small sign of recovery in the month of September, the Italian market for industrial vehicles above 3.5 t GVM starts to decline again, seriously putting the final budget for 2024 already now just above the positive sign. A situation that builders don’t like, who see above all an inertia on the part of the institutions.

In particular UNRAE presses for structural interventions in the medium term, and more timely ones in the immediate future, including the downsizing if not the revocation of the cuts announced in the automotive sector and the establishment of a fund to support the renewal of the circulating fleet.

The data in detail

A new decline in the industrial vehicle market therefore characterizes the month of October, during which they were registered 2,184 units against 2,238 in October 2023 (-2.4%). The monthly result further reduces the growth achieved in the first ten months of 2024 which stands at a modest +1.7% compared to the January-October period of last year.

The contraction of the last month was mainly affected by the segment of heavier vehicles which recorded a deficit of 3.3%, with 1,872 units registered and a loss of volumes equal to 64 units. Light vehicles up to 6 tonnes also closed negative at -1.7%, while registrations of medium-sized vehicles showed an increase of 11 units, between 6.01 and 15.99 tonnes (+4.5%).

There is a risk of a minus sign for 2024

The second half of 2024 therefore seems to be characterized by a negative trend that highlights the limits of a market which, without concrete interventions, risks suffering an even more marked contraction. According to Paolo A. Starace, President of the Industrial Vehicles Section of UNRAE, if we want to avoid this decline also characterizing the whole of 2025, a change of direction is essential, with immediate actions and incisive referring, in particular, to the 2024 incentives for the renewal of the vehicle fleet, announced and financed with an ad hoc Decree signed last August 6, but which will probably become operational only in the first months of 2025

What worries the UNRAE leaders most is the silence of the institutions which, despite public proclamations from politicians, at the moment do not show any concrete signals in support of road transport and the allocations foreseen so far have proved insufficient to revive the fortunes of the sector. The hope is that, in revoking the huge cuts announced for the automotive sector, the sector will receive adequate attention from the legislator during the approval process of the Budget Maneuver in Parliament.