The car market in Germany grew slightly last year despite the weak economy. The number of new car registrations was 2.86 million vehicles, 1.4 percent above the previous year’s figure, the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) announced on Tuesday.
December brought a boost to the previously sluggish development with one more working day, an increase of almost 10 percent. However, demand has not recovered significantly from the slump caused by the corona pandemic five years ago – in 2019 there were still 3.6 million new cars on the roads.
There is a continuing reluctance to buy among private individuals and companies, explained Constantin Gall, car expert at the management consultancy EY. “The weak economy, increasing job concerns and the multitude of political, social and economic crises are taking their toll.” The expert also expects a significant upward trend in 2026; he predicted 1 percent growth. The gap of 750,000 new cars compared to the pre-crisis year 2019 is hardly closing.
Tesla remains on the decline, electric car sales grow by 43 percent
The strongest increase was achieved among the German manufacturers BMW with almost 9 percent growth. Market leader VW maintained its market share of almost a fifth with 4.5 percent more new cars. Mercedes-Benz only achieved one percent growth. Of the imported brands, the Czech VW subsidiary Skoda performed best (plus 10 percent).
While new registrations of cars with combustion engines fell by around a fifth, the Electric car-Sales rose sharply by 43 percent after the lull in the previous year. However, the former industry pioneer Tesla experienced a slump. With a good 19,000 units, the US company only brought almost half as many cars onto the market as in the previous year, and its market share shrank to 0.7 percent. The brand suffered due to the political involvement of the company boss Elon Musk damage to its image, and there is also a lack of new models. Chinese competitors BYD and MG Roewe overtook Tesla.
Car manufacturers expect slight growth for the current year. The Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) and the importers’ association VDIK predicted growth of 2.0 to 2.5 percent to more than 2.9 million cars. But this is only possible if the federal government’s funding for new electric cars is implemented quickly. The VDIK reiterated that the financial incentives would have to come into force retroactively to January 1st.