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Cars are jammed on the A6
Photo: Uli Deck / picture alliance / dpa
Despite the debates about climate change and the turnaround in traffic, more and more cars are driving in Germany: In the past ten years, the number of cars has increased continuously, according to the Federal Statistical Office based on figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) and its own calculations.
According to KBA figures, 48.5 million passenger cars (cars) were registered as of January 1, 2022, more than ever before (2021: 48.2 million).
In 2021, there were 580 cars for every 1000 inhabitants - a record value.
In 2011, the value was still 517. Overall, the number of cars has increased significantly faster than the population over the ten-year period, the statisticians summarized.
The regional differences in the car density are large: it was highest in the western states of Saarland (658 cars per 1000 inhabitants), Rhineland-Palatinate (632) and Bavaria (622).
The city states of Berlin (337), Hamburg (435) and Bremen (438) had the lowest values – among other things due to a particularly dense public transport network.
The eastern German federal states not only had values for 2021 that were below the national average.
According to the Federal Office, the number of cars there has increased less than in Germany as a whole since 2011.
The proportion of households that own at least one car has fallen slightly - from 77.9 percent (2011) to 77 percent (2021).
In the same period, however, the proportion of households with two cars rose from 23.4 percent to 27 percent.
The proportion of households with three or more cars increased from 3.7 percent to 6.1 percent.
At the same time, cars with electric drives are on the rise.
In the case of newly registered cars from January to July 2022, their share was already 13.6 percent.
A year earlier it was still 0.6 percent.
As in Germany, the car density has also increased in all other member states of the European Union (EU) in a ten-year comparison.
Germany was last in eighth place among the 27 members.
The top places are occupied by Luxembourg (682), Italy (670) and Poland (664).
The car density was lowest in Romania (379), Latvia (390) and Hungary (403).
Reuters/dpa/joe