Car buyers are picking up again
More cars were sold in Germany again in October. After a setback in the previous month, 218,959 cars were handed over to customers, according to the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA). Over the year as a whole, this was an increase of almost five percent. Electric cars also saw a tentative upturn in October after the previous slump following the expiry of subsidies. This brought the total number of cars sold since the beginning of the year to 2.6 million - an increase of 13.5 percent.
New registrations of electric cars rose by four percent in October. "We will see an increase in new electric car registrations before the government scrapping bonus is reduced again from January 2024," said Constantin Gall, Partner at the auditing and consulting firm EY. "All in all, we expect around 540,000 new electric car registrations in Germany this year - that would be 15 percent more than in the previous year."
According to EY, the new car market as a whole will be above the previous year's level this year, but will clearly fall short of the pre-crisis level of 2019. The market will not be able to close the gap in 2024 either. EY partner Gall expects higher discounts and favorable financing and leasing offers. What pleases customers will cause headaches for car manufacturers. "Margins will come under severe pressure."
The German brands were largely able to increase their sales in October - with one important exception: market leader Volkswagen bucked the trend with a significant drop in sales of 15.4 percent to 34,806 cars. Premium subsidiary Audi, on the other hand, increased its sales by around a fifth, as did BMW. Mercedes recorded slight growth of 3.8 percent.
German car production also increased. Domestic production rose by almost a fifth to 338,800 units in October, according to the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA). In the first ten months, the increase was 23 percent to just under 3.5 million cars. However, production was still 13 percent below the pre-crisis level from the same period in 2019.
Source: www.ntv.de
