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A year or two ago, electric cars were a niche product.
Purely battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids achieved a full four percent market share in Germany in 2019.
Cars with diesel engines achieved around 30 percent.
The picture has changed rapidly. Now, for the first time, electric cars have overtaken diesel on the basis of the entire current calendar year. From January up to and including July 2021, authorities issued 367,905 approvals for an externally chargeable electric vehicle (market share almost 22.6 percent). Diesel vehicles had around 361,151 registrations (22.2 percent). Ahead are still gasoline engines with 629,990 registrations (38.7 percent), the rest is mainly attributable to non-rechargeable hybrids. This is evident from the figures that the Federal Motor Transport Authority published on Wednesday.
A total of 1,627,282 new cars came onto the road in the first seven months, an increase of 6.7 percent.
In July 2021, around 236,393 new passenger cars were registered - 24.9 percent fewer than in the same month last year.
The Association of the Automotive Industry pointed out that the pre-crisis level was “still not in sight”.
Semiconductor shortages: total sales collapse 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, because of the semiconductor shortage, automakers can't build as many cars as they could sell.
With the boom in e-cars, the long-term political support for battery-powered drives is producing a symbolic success. The state supports the purchase of electric cars with 6,000 euros, the manufacturers grant a further 3,000 euros discount, as they have agreed with the federal government. There are also subsidies for electric company cars and charging stations. EU climate legislation also encourages manufacturers to build locally emission-free cars.
They are therefore flooding the market with new models. Volkswagen has now started its electric offensive with the ID.3 compact car and the ID.4 SUV. BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Porsche have started the competition with the pioneer Tesla. But even small electric cars from Renault or Smart sometimes have four-digit registration numbers per month. Even Dacia has entered the segment. As an externally chargeable electric car, however, the plug-in hybrid vehicles are also included in the statistics - in addition to the electric drive, they also have an internal combustion engine on board.
In contrast, the diesel has lost a lot of its reputation among car buyers in recent years.
The start of the decline was the scandal in 2015. As a result, numerous cities introduced driving bans, and the diesel market share fell almost continuously.
Car buyers are gradually reducing their reservations about battery technology.
Two thirds of Germans with a driver's license can imagine buying an electric car, according to a representative survey by the energy company Eon.
Accordingly, among other things, the number of people who consider battery cars to be more environmentally friendly than combustion engines is growing.
"High premiums and the availability of e-models from German manufacturers brought about a turning point," says car expert Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management (CAM) research institute at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach.
There are more and more models with longer ranges, and the funding has made them price-competitive.
Electric cars still have disadvantages: Charging still takes longer than refueling, which can cause problems, especially on longer journeys.
Many people who live in the city do not have their own parking lot with electricity.
And so a smooth march through the electric cars is by no means certain.
“The charging infrastructure remains a major challenge, as it could slow down the acceptance of e-vehicles and the future market ramp-up,” says Bratzel.
In addition, some manufacturers and Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer rely on so-called synthetic fuels, generated with renewable energies from water and carbon dioxide.
Theoretically, these could be used in cars with conventional internal combustion engines and would enable them to have a future.
However, many experts consider this undertaking too expensive and unrealistic.
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