The German car market has picked up in 2022 and is showing slight growth after two years of deep crisis, thanks to a rush on electric vehicles in recent months.
If, in France, the car market plunged again last year, returning to its 1975 level, it is back in the green in Germany. Europe’s largest economy saw its new car sales increase by 1.1% compared to 2021, to 2.65 million units, the Federal Automobile Agency (KBA) said in a statement.
The flagship sector of our neighbor across the Rhine has stopped the bleeding after the negative records recorded in 2020 and 2021, the lowest annual levels of new registrations since reunification.
End of the year with a bang
First hit by the economic shock of the pandemic, then component shortages and the brakes on international supply chains, the automotive market has had to cope this year with rising energy prices and record inflation. . But it rebounded sharply from August.
In December, the increase in new registrations even reached 38.1% over one year, allowing the sector to end the year on a “positive” note, notes the Agency.
“With this strong final push, the 2022 automotive year ends in a conciliatory way, even if the market as a whole remained well below expectations”, comments Reinhard Zirpel, president of the federation of automobile importers (VDIK), quoted in a press release.
Despite this improvement, the automotive market remains far from its pre-crisis performance since 3.6 million cars were registered during 2019, before the pandemic, i.e. one million more than this year.
Rush on electricity with the announced drop in aid
The sector was driven at the end of the year by the rush of consumers for electric cars, the government having announced the reduction from January 2023 of environmental bonuses allowing households and businesses to finance their purchases.
In the last month of 2022, 174,000 electric and hybrid vehicles were newly registered, an increase of 114%.
“This is the first time that more than half of new cars in a month are electric vehicles (55%)”, notes the VDIK.
But this momentum should slow down considerably in 2023, warns the president of the federation. “Unfortunately, the rise in electricity prices and the reduction in subsidies will have a negative impact on the attractiveness of electric cars,” he warns.
In addition, record inflation, which reached 7.9% in 2022, continues to reduce consumers’ purchasing power.
