Our western neighbor represents one of the largest new car markets in the world. In November this year, they recorded a significant year-on-year drop in sales of electric cars, which may accelerate even more next year.
The German car market experienced golden times especially in 2009 and 2019, when 3.8 and 3.6 million new passenger cars were sold in our western neighbors, respectively. Last year, also due to covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there were “only” 2,650,000 cars. This year’s numbers look a little better. For the entire year 2023, sales could stop somewhere around 2.85 to 2.9 million cars, because the year-on-year comparison reports a plus of 11.4% until the end of November.
The falling sales of electric cars are interesting. Almost 45,000 of them were registered in Germany in November, a significant 22.5 percent less than in the eleventh month of 2022. Plug-in hybrids recorded a loss of 59.3% to just 18,124 units.
The relatively large year-on-year declines are caused, among other things, by the fact that last year, with the prospect of further reductions in state subsidies (for plug-ins they ended completely at the end of 2022), they bought electrified cars ahead of time in order to get a higher amount. The trend shows, however, that with decreasing aid, people’s willingness to switch to emission-free drive is decreasing at the same time.
And with respect to the end of generous subsidies for the purchase of electric cars, sales of this segment will probably be lower next year than this year. Customers are also said to be discouraged by the general uncertainty that comes with the mentioned cuts, which theoretically may be followed by other restrictions, for example in the form of a reduction in tax credits. They can therefore quickly adopt the authorities’ plans to have around 15 million electric cars driving in Germany by 2030.
From the Czech point of view, there is an interesting interest in the Škoda Enyaq, which became the best-selling electric car in Germany with 3,588 vehicles in November. Tesla’s Model Y, otherwise aspiring to be the most popular car in Europe for 2023, saw 2,840 entries.
Volkswagen maintains the largest market share (18.2%). Škoda has 5.9 percent, which is more than Opel (5.1 percent) and Hyundai with 3.7 percent. The Mladoboleslav brand also jumped over the American Ford, which, however, is considered almost a domestic brand in Germany. The blue oval fell to 4.2% in November, while six years ago it held a 7.7% share.
The best-selling car was the Volkswagen Golf (7,503 cars), followed by the Volkswagen Tiguan (still an outgoing generation), the Polo and the T-Roc. Among them, only the Opel Corsa was able to wedge itself into fourth place.
2023-12-12 08:57:00
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