Romanian auto industry rallies to surpass pre-pandemic levels in first nine months

Passenger car production was up 21.2% year-on-year, to 381,971 units, in Romania in the first three quarters of 2022, according to figures released Monday. Of these 230,078 unites were Dacia and 151,893 Ford models, the Romanian Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACAROM) reported.

The figures represented a rise of 25.2% on the same period in 2020 (305,073 units) and even surpassed the pre-pandemic 354,812 units made in the same period of 2019, by 7.65%.

In September 51,578 cars were manufactured in the country, 30,575 of them at the Dacia plant in Mioveni, central-southern Romania, and 21,003 at the Ford plant in Craiova, southern Romania.

Registrations of new cars in Romania rose by 7.94% in the first nine months of the year, to 95,276, ACAROM added, citing the Romanian Driving License and Vehicle Registration Regime Directorate. In the same period of the previous year 88,262 new cars were registered.

Dacia was far ahead of the other brands, with 27,709 cars, followed by Toyota (7,802), Hyundai (7,473), Ford (6,845), Skoda (6,405), Volkswagen (6,136), Renault (5,429), Peugeot (2,802) and Mercedes (2,669).

A total of 241,992 first-time-registered second-hand cars were booked in Romania in the first nine months of 2022, down 20.69% year-on-year.