Crisis makes car buyers go for petrol-driven vehicle

Lower price and special offers still being run have made sales of petrol-driven cars pick up speed, leaving those of diesel-driven cars behind.

Sales of cars in the first six months posted as much as 60% fall, discount became the keyword and the lowest declines were those of the brands or models with the most attractive price cut. “The purchasing price influences the decision to buy a car the most at the moment. And cars running on petrol are always cheaper,” says Cristian Oltean, sales manager of Chevrolet for Central and Eastern Europe, former Opel sales manager at GM Romania. Since January last year, when diesel-driven cars accounted for 47% of the market, their share in the total has gone down to 28% this May. The decline in 2008 was thought to be the result of the increase in the diesel oil price, which became more expensive than petrol, but in March this year, diesel became cheaper than petrol again. Whereas in 2007 and 2008, the trend on all segments from minis to SUVs was to go with diesel-driven vehicles, more and more clients are currently choosing a car running on petrol. The trend in this case is visible up to full-size sedans and SUVs, which continue to sell almost 100% in diesel engine versions. “With models such as Audi Q7, the shift was not made from diesel to petrol, from more to less powerful diesel engines. For instance, we used to sell lots of models with the W12 engine in the past years. Now clients are not even asking about it,” said Alin Tapalaga, general manager of Porsche Inter Auto, Porsche Holding’s retail unit. A diesel-driven engine becomes profitable only if one travels a lot in that particular car. Usually diesel engines are chosen for corporate cars because these cars travel a lot during a year. “There is a downsizing trend on the market, towards either less powerful diesel engines or petrol engines in case of cars on the lower segments. Even traditional diesel customers have made the switch to petrol-driven cars because many of them realised they did not travel enough kilometres to justify buying a more expensive diesel-driven model,” Tapalaga said. Second, the trend to go for petrol-powered models is also dictated by the special offers and the cars available in stock.