European manufacturers used 83% of their capacity in 2018
- European manufacturers used 83% of their European capacities in 2018, compared to 85% in 2017, as production volume on this continent fell by 2.1% last year to 18.4 million PC+LCVs, due to several declining markets and difficulties for some manufacturers to adapt some of their models to the new WLTP standards.
- Nevertheless, this utilization rate remains one of the best of the decade, because even though production fell by 2.1% last year, demand and therefore the market remain at a high level ,if we look at the results recorded over the last fifteen years.
- Observation of the utilization rate of automakers' factories in Europe shows that the PSA, Ford and Honda groups were the only ones to increase this rate between 2017 and 2018, while all the others’ utilization rate fell.
- Honda's performance will not pay off as the Japanese company decided to close its two European plants in 2021.
- Suzuki, FCA, Geely and Volkswagen are the manufacturers with an utilization rate of less than 80% in 2018. Nonetheless, Volkswagen plans to build a new plant in Eastern Europe, which, in view of this utilization rate, doesn’t make sense. FCA should also, logically ,close at least one plant.
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