They are a mixture of electric car and combustion vehicle and were still being promoted until the end of last year. With the end of the subsidy, the strong increase in stocks also ends.
After the end of the subsidy at the turn of the year, the stock of plug-in hybrid cars in Germany is hardly growing. This emerges from data published by the Federal Motor Transport Authority.
In the first quarter, the number of these vehicles on German roads increased by only 11,108. That’s less than a tenth of what it was in the fourth quarter of 2022. Back then, the number was exceptionally high, but inventory had also increased many times the current increase in all other quarters of 2022 and 2021. As of April 1, the value was 875,820. Plug-in hybrid cars are a mixture of an electric car and a combustion vehicle.
At the turn of the year, government subsidies for plug-in hybrids expired. It was lowered for purely battery-powered electric cars – and here, too, a decline in inventory growth can be seen. In the first quarter, their number increased by 65,048 to 1.08 million. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the plus was still 172,364. Pull-forward effects from the reduction in funding may also have played a role here. Still, growth in the first quarter was the lowest in two years.
At least in the case of purely electric cars, however, growth could pick up again: 29,740 were newly registered in April, a good third more than in the same month last year. In the case of plug-in hybrids, on the other hand, the number of new registrations last month was 11,787. This is just a little more than half of the value from the same period in 2022.
Source: Stern
