Based on our seasonally adjusted calculations, the pace of new car registrations in France, Italy and Spain in January remained weak, reflecting the ongoing concerns of households towards big-ticket expenditure. German data are unavailable at the moment, as they are published with a lag of a couple of days.  
 
The outlook for this year looks bleak as tough austerity measures to tackle the region's swirling sovereign-debt crisis are expected to eat into demand. Based on our baseline growth scenario of an overall eurozone GDP contraction of 0.3% on average in 2012 including a 0.2% drop in private consumption, the prospects for the auto sector are very weak, and if anything are tilted to the downside. A lot will also depend on the time it takes for European and international leaders to break the negative feedback loop in confidence.


source: BarCap