The French automotive industry is still primarily dominated by French brands, with France’s Renault selling around 6,000 more battery electric vehicles than Tesla, the global BEV market leader. France’s automotive manufacturing industry recorded approximately 85 billion euros in net sales in 2020, a drop of 22 percent amid production halts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This decrease in revenue coincided with a decline in sales, which is yet to recover from the pandemic. Automotive semiconductor shortages decreased the new vehicle supply in the country. In 2021, France reported around 1.66 million new passenger cars and 483,279 commercial vehicle sales—respective increases of 0.5 and 7.42 percent year-over-year, still below the country’s 2019 sales volume.
The struggle to recover amid semiconductor shortages
The French passenger car fleet decreased in 2021, down to 38.35 million automobiles in circulation in the country. Around 41 percent of French consumers also reported not intending to buy a car, with another 19 percent wanting to purchase a used vehicle. This partly contributed to the slowdown in the country’s fleet expansion. However, the automotive sector was fundamental in France’s cross-border trade. France exported around 15.24 billion euros worth of passenger cars in 2020, with another 7.73 billion in commercial vehicles—most of which were exported to its European neighbors. These automotive exports represented around 10.1 percent of France’s total goods exports that same year, a share that barely dipped compared to 2019.Direct employment in the automotive industry increased in 2019 after a period of decline from 2014 to 2018. Still, the COVID-19 pandemic led to increased unemployment in the sector, which reported around 216,000 full-time equivalent employees in 2020. The pandemic also led to a sharp decrease in the auto manufacturing industry’s production per employee, which dropped to around 12.2 units per worker amid the production halts and lockdowns. With the global automotive semiconductor shortage generating supply chain issues in 2021 and 2022, France’s production volume has been struggling to recover. In 2021, the country produced around 1.35 million motor vehicles, up from 1.32 million in 2020 but down from 2.2 million in 2019. While passenger car production had already been dipping in 2019, the pandemic and chip shortage accelerated this decline. While cars were still the primary vehicle type produced in France, commercial vehicles were the only ones with an increased output in 2021.
The road to zero-emissions
Transportation is estimated to be responsible for the emission of around 126 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in France in 2021, making it the largest polluter in the country—comparatively, the manufacturing and construction sector emits around 77.8 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Passenger cars were responsible for most of the carbon dioxide emissions from road transportation that year, just under double the volume of heavy vehicles. Most French car sales were internal combustion engine vehicles—40.24 percent of petrol cars and 21.07 percent of diesel cars in 2021. However, petrol and diesel vehicles still record high levels of emissions. In 2020, a petrol car emitted, on average, 109 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. These average emissions have decreased slowly in 2019 and 2020 but remain slightly higher than diesel car emissions.Diesel cars used to benefit from high popularity in 2010 but quickly lost their momentum, with new registrations dipping by nearly 25 percent between 2010 and 2013. Part of this drop in popularity is attributed to increased environmental concerns related to internal combustion engine vehicles. Battery electric vehicles amounted to under 10 percent of car sales in 2021, a share which rose to 18.27 when adding plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. As of November 2021, French consumers still considered themselves poorly informed on electric vehicle (EV) ownership. Sixty-three percent of survey respondents believed themselves poorly informed on EVs’ usage costs compared to a petrol or diesel car, with 54 percent reporting poor information on EVs’ environmental impact.
