In just one quarter, the average turnaround time for custom-fitted vehicles has been reduced from 10 to 8 months. The number of cars available “on the spot” has doubled.
The number of cars available off the shelf has doubled. There are already several thousand of them in the entire market, Karsile calculated. Most people looking for a fairly popular car and willing to accept affordable equipment should have no problem buying a car. The difficult situation still persists in the commercial vehicle segment.
According to Carsmile forecasts, the beginning of the year brought a further improvement in the availability of new cars in Poland. - March is another month that brings us closer to the norm when it comes to waiting time for a new car. There has been a significant improvement over the past 3 months, but we have seen a gradual increase in car availability since last August. says Michal Knitter, vice president of Carsmile.
One step away from the pre-pandemic norm
Currently, there are two phenomena on the market that define the new “normality” of the Polish automotive industry. - The average production time calculated by us, i.е. The waiting time for a custom-ordered vehicle is currently around 8 months for the entire passenger car and light van market. This result is two months better than in December. So it is clear that the situation in the market is improving. Less and less often we receive information from manufacturers about the lack of components and the associated delays, Michal Knitter estimates. According to him, if only the most popular models were taken into account, the average time needed to produce and deliver a car to Poland would be reduced to about 5 months, which is the norm we were used to before the pandemic. “I do not rule out that this year we will see such an average figure across the entire market,” Carsmile vice president predicts.
More and more vehicles are available “on the spot”
The second indicator of car affordability is the fleet of cars that can be bought or rented “on the spot”. The number of such vehicles rose from 750 to 1,670 in mid-December when Carsmile released its previous figures. – Immediately available cars are those that can be picked up within 4 weeks after the prepayment has been made. These are off-the-shelf vehicles that are either already in dealerships or will soon be delivered to Poland,” explains Mateusz Zawadzki, Deputy Head of Purchasing at Carsmile.
The current number of about 1,700 such vehicles was received by Carsmile experts after studying the offers of several dozen dealers of individual brands throughout Poland. - Taking into account the stocks of other dealers, as well as repeated versions of engines and equipment of individual car models, it can be assumed that the pool of cars available “off the shelf” throughout Poland can already reach several thousand. According to Mateusz Zawadzki, most people who are looking for a fairly popular car, if they are willing to accept the available equipment, should not have serious problems with buying a car.
Crisis helps
What are the reasons for the improvement? First, reduce the number of orders for new machines to make it easier for factories to keep up with production. – The decrease in demand concerns, in particular, cars in the price range of PLN 100,000–PLN 250,000. PLN, representing the broadly understood middle of the market, excluding crossovers and SUVs, lists Carsmile’s vice president. The sales situation is much better in the cheapest car segment as well as in the premium segment. This last part of the market has been largely spared by the crisis.
Another factor driving car availability in Poland is the orders placed by dealers in the dark. - Seeing a decrease in orders, and at the same time a rather strong expectation from customers that the car will be available “on the spot”, dealers simply order cars that sell well in order to be able to offer the buyer a relatively fast pickup. time,” explains Carsmile’s vice president. He adds that for customers, accessibility is now an absolute priority, even at the cost of configuration. This shift in shopping attitudes is the result of the pandemic and the war, but there is no sign that this trend will change.
Displays are still blacklisted, but slots are now available
Which pieces of equipment extend the waiting time of the car? - The general rule still applies: the less electronics in the car, the faster it will be available. First of all, this concerns rear-view cameras, blind spot sensors, large displays or LED matrix headlights. There are still situations where a car arrives in Poland without equipment, but they are definitely less common than in the first half of 2022. However, the situation has improved significantly when it comes to gearboxes. If half a year ago, the automatic transmission significantly extended the waiting time or was completely absent in some models, but today such situations happen much less often, says Mateusz Zawadzki.
Problems with company cars
On the other hand, the difficult situation remains with vans up to 3.5t, the standard waiting time of which is about 12-16 months. As Michal Ovcarczyk, an expert in commercial vehicle procurement at Carsmile, explains, one of the reasons for this situation is the reduction of production places at some plants (this happened despite the increase in list prices). Some manufacturers also have a problem with transport, which can delay the delivery of the car to Poland for several weeks, and in extreme cases for several months. This problem affects the commercial vehicle segment in particular, although the entire industry is facing it. There are not enough qualified drivers who would drive tow trucks, i.е. because Ukrainian citizens, who made up a significant workforce in this sector, left to defend their homeland.
Source: Wprost
I am Jason Root. I work in the news website industry and mostly cover the automobile industry. I have also written for Daily News Hack. My work revolves around new car models, prices, and features. In addition, I often write about used cars and tips for buying them. My articles are meant to be helpful for those who are in the market for a new or used car.
