“I don't look into the future. It is impossible to keep track of that and it would take too much time. For the half-yearly report on sales of buses and coaches as well as specific drivelines, I look at all vehicles actually registered," states Wim Chatrou of CME Solutions. "A lot of figures are being spread around and a lot of new vehicles are being introduced but the real sales figures sometimes reveal a different story.”
After his career at DAF, Bova and VDL, Wim Chatrou founded CME Solutions in 2009, which focuses on collecting and listing sales figures of buses and coaches. "Knowledge is power but it is not easy to collect all the information. To do so, I rely on the official figures of newly registered vehicles. In the initial phase, I limited myself to Western Europe and Poland, but for the past three years I have been collecting all information from the European Union, Great Britain, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. At least I need to know who the manufacturer is, which models were registered, to which weight category they belong and what propulsion system they have. I also make a subdivision according to coach, city bus, midibus and intercity bus or multipurpose bus" Wim Chatrou indicates.
Covid
"There is an increasing need for additional information as well, and I also factor that into historical analyses. For example, you can see how the covid pandemic had a huge impact on coach sales. Some are now talking about catching up but that will only become apparent when I have the officially recorded registrations.”
“When I look back at the figures for the first half of 2023, 6797 city buses were sold in Europe. The share of diesel buses fell to 26.4% while electric increased to 36%. Hybrid buses account for 21.2%, CNG buses score 14.7% and hydrogen fuel cell buses remain limited to 1.4%.”
“In general, I see how the bus and coach market is under pressure and more players are entering the market. It also shows the global interest in the European market," Wim Chatrou concludes.