In 2024, the crisping German auto industry exported more new cars. The most important sales market are the USA, where under President Donald Trump (78) Additional tariffs threaten, show figures from the Federal Statistical Office on Thursday. That would hit the German car manufacturers and suppliers hard who fight with burglaries.
According to the statistics, around 3.4 million new cars worth 135 billion euros were made last year Germany delivered all over the world. This increased the export amount by 2.5 percent in the previous year, but the value of exports fell slightly by 1.3 percent. Export purely electrically operated cars grew by almost 12 percent and reached a share of a good quarter with 881,000 cars.
USA most important sales market in front of Great Britain
No other country took as many new cars from Germany as the United States: they were at the front with a 13.1 percent share of exports, followed by Great Britain (11.3 percent) and France (7.4 percent). According to the Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), exports to the United States have increased to the previous year. However, the exports were under the pre-Corona level of 2019 with 3.5 million vehicles, said VDA chief economist Manuel Kallweit. Around 1.8 million new cars were imported to Germany in 2024. This means that imports dropped by 11.5 and value by 12.8 percent.
Trump threatens 25 percent inches on cars from the EU
The numbers show how vulnerable the German auto industry is in the case of new US tariffs. Trump has threatened with an import duty of 25 percent on the EU cars. He wants to comment specifically at the beginning of April. So far, a customs rate of 2.5 percent applies to auto imports from the EU to the USA, and the EU calculates 10 percent the other hand. Mercedes boss Ola Källenius pleaded on cars in the trade dispute for the elimination of all tariffs. “Let’s lower these tariffs to zero on both sides,” he recently told the “Handelsblatt”.
Additional US tariffs would not only put a lot of strain on Mercedes, but the entire industry. The US market is one of the most important sales markets for all German car manufacturers. Almost every third Porsche and every sixth BMW were sold in North America in 2024, at VW, Audi And Mercedes-Benz was 12 to 15 percent each.
VW, BMW and Mercedes operate large works in the USA and also serve the US market from Mexico. Nevertheless, in large numbers from Europe. BMW, for example, expects a significantly falling profit margin if the USA increases the import duties for cars to the EU level of 10 percent, said CFO Walter Mertl recently. The German suppliers would also be severely affected by higher tariffs. It was only on Thursday that ZF from Friedrichshafen announced a loss of billions.