According to the report from Association of European Carmakers (ACEA), in February 2019, the EU passenger car market contracted by 1.0% compared to one year ago, despite some major EU markets showing a slight recovery. After a five-month decline, demand for new cars increased modestly in Germany (+2.7%), France (+2.1%) and the United Kingdom (+1.4%) last month. However, in Spain (-8.8%) and Italy (-2.4%) car registrations continued to decrease for the sixth consecutive month.

From January to February 2019, demand for new cars in the European Union fell by 2.9%. Some markets saw a strong drop compared to last year, most notably Spain (-8.4%) and Italy (-4.9%), but new passenger car registrations remained more or less stable in Germany (+0.6%), France (+0.5%) and the United Kingdom (-0.6%).