Car registrations: Every fourth new car is an SUV

Created: 05/29/2022, 07:23

By: Marcus Efler

The boom is unbroken: the proportion of SUVs in new registrations in Germany has been growing for years.

2021 marked another record.

Flensburg – Loved and hated: This is how you could summarize the mood towards the so-called Sport Utility Vehicles, SUVs for short.

For many contemporaries, the high vehicles, which have developed from classic off-road vehicles, serve as an enemy and are considered the prototype of the swanky car.

In Tübingen, they have to pay higher parking fees than "normal" cars, and according to a study, they are above average dangerous for pedestrians.

Loved and hated: SUV, here the BMW X7.

(Iconic image) © Uwe Fischer/BMW AG

Car registrations: Every fourth new car is an SUV

But that doesn't change the fact that this vehicle class continues to enjoy great popularity in Germany.

The boom in fat people is unbroken: between 2016 and 2021, according to the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), their share of all new registrations almost exactly doubled from 12.7 to 25.4 percent.

667,000 new SUVs were registered in 2021.

Car Registrations: Hardcore off-roaders and crossovers are considered SUVs

A year earlier, this segment had achieved a share of 21.3 percent with 620,800 units, i.e. around four percentage points less.

In absolute numbers of new registrations, however, 2019 was the previous record year: the KBA paid 762,500 cars in this class (corresponding to a market share of 21.1 percent).

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However, the authority also combines quite different vehicles in this segment: hardcore off-roaders such as the all-wheel drive Jeep Wrangler are just as much a part of this as so-called crossovers à la Mazda CX-60, which are technically completely normal but slightly higher cars.