In December 2022, 314,318 passenger cars were newly registered in Germany. That is 38.1 percent more than in December 2021. The annual balance sheet of the Federal Motor Transport Authority shows a total of 2.65 million new vehicles for the past year. This is a slight increase of 1.1 percent compared to 2021 thanks to the strong December. 64.1 percent (minus 0.9 percent) of the new vehicles are commercially registered and 35.9 percent (+4.9 %) privately. Every fifth new vehicle in the past year was an electric car. It remains to be seen whether the trend after the reduction in the subsidy premium will continue.
In the year just ended, Audi posted double-digit growth (+17.3%). Among the German brands, there were also positive signs at Mercedes-Benz (+8.3%), Ford (+3.9%) and Porsche (+1.3%). All other domestic manufacturers sold fewer cars in 2022 than in 2021, especially Smart (-49.3%) after the end of production in Europe. Opel fell 10.7 percent short of the previous year, BMW 5.5 percent and market leader VW 1.8 percent – still the market leader with a share of 18.1 percent.
The annual results for the imported brands varied. While Polestar (+166.4%), DS (+91.2%), Tesla (+76.2%), Dacia (+49.7%), Jeep (+27.3%), Alfa Romeo (+ 22.3%) and Kia (+15.6%) showed significant increases, as did Suzuki (-43.1%), Jaguar (-25.0%), Renault (-24.6%), Subaru ( -20.3%), Volvo (-16.1%), Peugeot (-14.1%), Citroen (-14.0%) and Lexus (-11.9%) all saw double-digit declines. With a market share of 5.4 percent, Skoda remained the most successful importer ahead of Seat (4.2 percent) and Hyundai (4.0 percent).
More than half of all new registrations were in the SUV (29.3%), compact class (15.9%), small car (12.4%), off-road vehicle (11.3%) and mid-size (10.2%) segments. Large vans (2.2%) recorded the most significant growth in the annual balance sheet with a plus of 26.9 percent.
At 32.6 percent, the proportion of petrol-powered passenger cars (863,445/-11.2%) was below the previous year’s level (37.1%); the proportion of diesel-powered passenger cars (472,274/-9.9%) fell to 17.8 percent (previous year: 20.0%). The number of plug-in hybrids increased by 11.3 percent to 362,093 units and a market share of 13.7 percent. 470,559 electric passenger cars (BEV) had a year-on-year growth of 32.2 percent. Their market share last year was 17.7 percent. LPG-powered passenger cars increased by almost half to 15,006 new registrations and achieved a market share of 0.6 percent, while natural gas vehicles remained insignificant with 1,846 sales and a decline by more than half (-52.9%).
With 223,889 new registrations, the motorcycle market recorded an increase of almost twelve percent. In the commercial vehicle market, only semitrailer tractors (+9.8%) were above the previous year’s level. Buses (-24.6%), trucks (-13.5%) and tractor units in total (-5.1%) and other motor vehicles (-3.0%) lagged behind the previous year. A total of 365,232 commercial vehicles were newly registered, including 20,606 battery-electric and 232 plug-in hybrids.
In addition, according to the KBA, 5.64 million used cars changed hands. (awm)