Manufacturers must take a wide range of factors into account when deciding on feature fitment policy across countries and regions.  For security, these considerations cover the overall sales and market situation, the current theft trends, any legislation and the insurance requirements or benefits.  Whilst legislation is the same across Europe, the other factors can vary dramatically by region, meaning market demand and customer expectations of security is very different in each country.

Historically, the UK Right Hand Drive (UK RHD) market has always had the highest fitment rates for security features.  This is due to the Thatcham insurance requirements, which have the largest range of criteria and the most rigorous testing in Europe.  Security fitment in other European Left Hand Drive (EU LHD) markets has therefore lagged behind. This situation is unlikely to change in the near future and fitment in the UK will remain highest, but the gap in security between UK RHD and EU LHD is getting noticeably smaller.

Features such as visible VIN are now standard on the majority of models across European markets, despite no legislation demand.  Fitment of double locking is increasing, whilst the demand for, and availability of, alarm systems has gradually spread from the premium luxury models onto smaller segment cars.

This report analyses the top five European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK) to show the closing gap in security fitment between UK RHD and EU LHD markets.  Picking the top ten most sold models and the top ten most stolen vehicles in each country, the report shows current fitment policy across thirteen security features.

Ultimately, the purpose of security fitment is to reduce the theft risk of the vehicle, yet looking deeper into the correlation of security fitment and the most popular vehicles with customers and thieves shows an interesting conclusion – thieves are more focussed on the vehicles which are popular with the customers (and therefore have the larger black market demand) rather than the easiest vehicles to steal.  A good security feature fitment strategy therefore requires a good understanding of which vehicles are under threat of theft, as well as the customer expectation and benefit structure in each market.

Read more about Understanding Security Specifications on Left Hand Drive models and email Alessio at ABallatore@sbd.co.uk to buy this report.