Significantly more new cars with battery-electric drives were registered in April than in the previous year. However, funding for this will soon be reduced. Gasoline and diesel cars were also in demand.
After a weaker start to the year, demand for new cars with battery-electric drives continues to increase significantly. Around 29,740 electric cars came onto the road in April, according to the Federal Motor Transport Authority. That was more than 34 percent more than in the same month last year.
The share of purely electric vehicles in all new registrations last month was around 15 percent. At the beginning of the year, demand had dropped due to lower production from January.
“Now electric cars are recovering again, growth is gaining momentum,” said Peter Fuss, partner at the consulting firm EY. Nevertheless, the current funding pots are finite. From the coming year, the sums shrank again. For commercial buyers there will no longer be any subsidies from September. “The electric car market must therefore increasingly stand on its own two feet – and experience from other countries shows that state subsidies still have a significant share in the success of e-cars, at least for the time being,” said Fuß.
Problematic from an environmental point of view
Gasoline and diesel cars also increased in sales last month compared to the previous year. According to the KBA, the increase in new registrations for petrol drives was almost 18 percent compared to April 2022. Growth for diesel was less at just under 3 percent.
A total of 202,947 passenger cars were newly registered in Germany last month. That was 12.6 percent more than in April of the previous year. “We are also expecting significant growth for the entire second quarter,” said the President of the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, Reinhard Zirpel. “However, that cannot hide the fact that the records of the pre-Corona years are far away.”
Source: Stern
