April 2022 was in a way historic for the car market in Germany, as it was the first full month in which Tesla Model Y from the Gigafactory in Grünheide, which officially started at the end of March were delivered near Berlin (see photo). However, not many of them have reached customers in the same country: In total, only 277 Model Ys were newly registered in Germany in April. From the Model 3, which still comes from the Gigafactory in China, there were not many more with 373 new registrations. And unlike in strong Tesla months, the number of new electric cars even decreased.
650 new German Tesla registrations in April
This emerges from data that the Federal Motor Transport Authority this week published. According to this, the total number of new registrations in Germany in April 2022 fell by 21.5 percent to 180,264 units compared to the same month last year, which was also the lowest value this year. 22,175 of the newly registered cars were purely electric – and that was 6.9 percent less than in April a year ago. The proportion of purely electric cars in new registrations thus reached 12.3 percent. In the case of plug-in hybrids, they fell by 19.6 percent to 21,697, almost as much as in the market as a whole.
The decline in purely electric car registrations in Germany was not due to Tesla. Compared to April 2021, they increased by 34.3 percent with a total of 650 Model 3 and Model Y. Compared to the previous month, however, this represents a slump, because in the Tesla with 8045 new registrations its highest German value ever reached. 5,516 new Model 3s meant second place among all passenger cars in March. In addition, there were 2,529 Model Ys with an unknown but certainly still small share in the performance variant, which is manufactured in the German factory.
The new Gigafactory is currently designed for up to 500,000 electric cars per year. The ramp-up could be quicker than the previous one in China, said Tesla CEO Elon Musk at a conference call in late April, but still takes time. And at least in Germany, not many of the locally produced Model Y may have arrived at customers that month: according to the KBA, this electric car has now registered 277 new registrations, and some of them are likely to have been Model Y Long Range, which are still from the Gigafactory in China originate.
Will the German Model Y save the market in May?
On the one hand, registration figures from the rest of Europe should provide more information about the ramp-up in Grünheide – but for example in Norway the number for the Model Y was even particularly low at 45 in April. May will also be interesting: Normally, ships with Tesla supplies from China, which were produced in the first few weeks, would gradually arrive in the second month of the quarter. But this time it’s delayed because the Gigafactory there has been closed since the end of March and only to a limited extent since mid-April produced again. So few, if any, Model 3s and Model Ys will be brought to Europe from China in May, giving the German factory a second chance to save the electric car market. In any case, it should contribute more than in April.