Car market
Experts expect further discounts for new cars
The car market in Germany is still not really gaining momentum. In the new year, electric cars could be in the fast lane.
According to car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, new car buyers can count on increasing discounts again in 2025. The purchase prices of electric and combustion cars will continue to converge. Because of the threat of EU fines, manufacturers are very interested in selling more electric vehicles. Political impulses can be expected from the EU level, while in Germany, due to the new elections and the subsequent formation of a government, no further government funding is initially expected.
In general, the head of the private Center Automotive Research (CAR) expects another weak car year in 2025. Sales in Germany will amount to around 2.84 million new cars after an estimated 2.82 million in 2024. “The times in which in Germany up to 3.6 million cars were sold are over,” summarizes Dudenhöffer. An important reason is the weak economic outlook.
Car manufacturers also entered the new year with the lowest order backlog in the past ten years, meaning they were more willing to make concessions in order to boost sales. According to the CAR study, there were also many daily registrations at the end of the year, which, after a delay, were intended to push prices down as special offers in the new year.
Most recently, manufacturers raised some list prices and scaled back the openly advertised discount programs, particularly for combustion engines, in December. The 20 top models only had an average discount of 15.5 percent on the list price after 17.4 percent in November. For battery models there was an average discount of 12.1 percent in December (12.9 percent). An electric car was an average of 5,600 euros more expensive to purchase than a comparable combustion engine. The operating costs are not taken into account here.
dpa
Source: Stern
