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For the first time in the top ten: The
Tesla Model Y
comes in tenth place in the ranking with 35,426 new registrations
Photo: STEVE MARCUS / REUTERS
For the first time since the beginning of the corona pandemic, new car sales in Germany have increased again.
Around 2.65 million vehicles were newly registered last year, according to current data from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA).
That is at least 1.1 percent more than in 2021, but still significantly less than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019 with 3.6 million vehicles.
The manufacturers could certainly have sold significantly more cars last year if production had not been slowed down by the lack of important primary products such as chips, especially in the first half of the year.
However, the chip crisis did not particularly affect the profits of the car manufacturers - the manufacturers' management levels simply changed their strategy and installed the scarce semiconductors in the premium vehicles, where the margins were significantly higher.
It is therefore not surprising that, according to an analysis by the consulting firm EY, German manufacturers alone were able to increase their operating profit by a whopping 58 percent in the third quarter of 2022 despite the slowdown in the economy.
Mercedes-Benz boss
Ola Källenius
(53) proved to be particularly clever here, who focused entirely on luxury over the course of the year and earned more money operationally in the third quarter of 2022 than any other carmaker in the same period.
In the second half of last year, however, the situation in the primary products also eased, and car manufacturers were again able to deliver more vehicles.
This can also be seen from the registration numbers.
While the manufacturers were still confronted with 11 percent fewer new registrations in the first half of the year, according to the KBA, the number of registrations jumped by around 38 percent in December.
VW Golf: The eternal bestseller
But profits are one thing, sales another.
The VW core brand remains the clear market leader in Germany with a share of 18.1 percent, and almost every sixth newly registered car comes from Volkswagen.
The other German car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz (9.2 percent), Audi (8.0 percent) and BMW (7.9 percent) have to be content with the last places.
The VW Golf in particular is still in demand and was the best-selling car in Germany last year.
The compact class has been in production since 1974, currently in its eighth generation.
According to Volkswagen's previous series logic, the VW Golf 9 would be on the program in 2026.
But in view of the transformation towards electrification, it is at least questionable whether the Wolfsburg-based company will bring another Golf model onto the market.
The VW models Tiguan and T-Roc are again in second and third place, with the VW Passat another VW product making it into the top ten.
For the first time a Stromer among the top ten
After Tesla narrowly failed in 2021, the electric car pioneer has now made it into the top ten best-selling cars for the first time with its all-electric Model Y.
If you only look at the purely electric cars, the Tesla Model 3 follows in second place, the Fiat 500 in third place and the ID. models from Volkswagen in fourth and fifth place.
Overall, there was a significant boost in electric cars last year.
With 470,559 electric vehicles, almost 33 percent more e-cars were registered than in the previous year, which put the electric models ahead of the alternative drive types and only just behind the new registrations of diesel vehicles.
In December in particular, a particularly large number of battery-powered passenger cars were registered, with an increase of 114 percent compared to the same period last year.
This is not surprising, however, since state subsidies for plug-in hybrids expired at the end of 2022 and the purchase premium for fully electric cars was also reduced.
And that could be reflected in the next number of registrations.
At the "mobility summit" to which Chancellor
Olaf Scholz
(64; SPD) recently invited representatives of the car and mobility industry to the Chancellery, there were no new proposals for state subsidies.
