Off-road vehicles and SUVs are still very popular with car buyers. One of the two segments accounted for a good third of new registrations in July, according to figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority emerge. Overall, however, the recovery on the German car market has come to an end again. After four months of strong growth compared to the weak previous year, new registrations fell by a quarter to around 236,400 vehicles in July. After seven months there was 1.6 million new registrations, an increase of around seven percent.
Recovery in the German car market stops abruptly in July
In the months of March to June, new registrations had risen sharply compared to the weak previous year, because car production and trading came to a standstill during the first lockdown and business then slowly picked up again. Now, due to the lack of semiconductors, automakers cannot build as many cars as they could sell.
While the registrations of vehicles with gasoline or diesel engines fell sharply in July, electric vehicles were still in demand. Pure Electric cars and plug-in hybrids together made up 23.6 percent of new registrations. New registrations of pure electric vehicles in July rose by around 52 percent to 25,500 vehicles compared to the same month last year (share 10.8 percent). Even higher was the plus of 58 percent for plug-in hybrids with 30,000 new registrations (share 12.8 percent).
There are purchase premiums for cars with electric drives, which together with the manufacturer’s share can amount to up to 9,000 euros. Nonetheless, expert Peter Fuß from the management consultancy EY said that the pace of growth in the boom electric car segment had also “massively decreased”. In June, sales of e-cars quadrupled, while those of plug-in hybrids tripled. “The chip shortage is also hitting the electronics segment hard,” he said.