European car sales slump further

The European car market suffered another month of heavy declines in June as the faltering economy made people less inclined to buy new vehicles. Registrations in June slumped 7.9% to 1.43 million vehicles.

Demand was down across most of the continent. Worst affected were Spain where new car registrations plunged 31% and Italy where they were down 20%.

The European car industry association said hardly any manufacturer was spared. Compared with the same month last year, VW Group’s sales fell 6.2%, PSA Peugeot Citroen was down 10%, Ford did better than most with a fall of 0.7%, BMW’s sales actually increased by 1.5% but Toyota’s plunged 18.7%.

And according to a report by Japanese state broadcaster NHK, Toyota plans to cut its global sales target this year by 3.6% from 9.85 million vehicles to 9.5 million.

A company spokesman would not confirm the figures but did say Japan’s biggest carmaker was “taking another look at its plans for 2008.”

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