Mobility: Lost year for electromobility in Germany

The electric car boom in Germany came to an abrupt halt last year. Only around 380,600 purely electric cars were newly registered in 2024, as the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) announced. That was more than a quarter less than the year before. The share of all new registrations fell by almost five percentage points to 13.5 percent compared to the previous year.

The federal government’s goal of having around 15 million battery-powered cars on German roads by 2030 is now becoming a long way off. According to KBA, the inventory at the turn of the year was only around 1.4 million electric vehicles.

Denmark and Sweden are significantly further

Germany also remains far away from the quotas of some Scandinavian countries. In Denmark, for example, electric cars now make up more than half of all newly registered cars, as the industry organization Mobility Denmark recently announced, citing figures from the website Bilstatistics.dk. In December, their share of new registrations was 61.5 percent.

Norway is doing even better. Of the almost 129,000 cars that were newly registered in Norway in 2024, a whopping 88.9 percent were electric cars, as the interest organization OFV announced. The country has invested heavily in expanding the charging infrastructure and created financial incentives for purchases.

“2024 was a lost year for electromobility in Germany,” said Constantin Gall, mobility expert at the consulting firm EY. “Although new and attractive models are coming onto the market, sales figures are significantly lower than expected by the industry and desired by politicians.”

He sees the main reason for the collapse in demand as the abrupt end of government purchasing support, which was surprisingly stopped at the end of 2023 as a result of the Federal Constitutional Court’s budget ruling. Experts also cite the still high prices for electric cars in Germany. German manufacturers in particular have so far mainly brought electrified versions of their high-priced premium models onto the market.

In Germany, customers can only get three models for less than 30,000 euros, criticized the ADAC at a meeting between the car industry and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) at the end of November.

Funding is an election campaign issue

The topic of e-car funding has long since arrived in the election campaign. Scholz recently spoke out in favor of a European funding approach. “We also need support measures,” he said after an EU summit in Brussels in December.

Since the market for electric cars is a European one, with networked production, delivery and customer structures, it would be best “that we find a European solution when it comes to purchasing incentives,” said the SPD politician. He cited tax advantages and purchase bonuses as examples. A similar demand is also in the SPD election program.

CSU proposes a purchase bonus of up to 3,600 euros

The CSU, in turn, has announced a purchase bonus of up to 3,600 euros if the Union wins the federal election in February. This emerges from a paper for the retreat of the CSU Bundestag members in the Seeon monastery in Upper Bavaria. The draft is available to the German Press Agency; Bayerischer Rundfunk had previously reported on it.

The paper states that the funding should primarily take into account the transport route from assembly to the point of sale. E-cars produced in Germany should primarily be promoted. “This has a double benefit: for jobs in Germany and for the climate,” said CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt. According to the paper, the purchase premium should be a maximum of 3,600 euros, and monthly leasing fees could be reduced by 100 euros.

Greenpeace calls for registration tax for combustion engines

The environmental organization Greenpeace reiterated calls for higher taxes on new cars with combustion engines. This already exists in numerous European countries. “Anyone who buys a new combustion engine in countries like Sweden, the Netherlands or Denmark will be taxed lightly on economical new cars and heavily on particularly climate-damaging gas guzzlers,” said Greenpeace mobility expert Marion Tiemann. It was said that the tax revenue could offset a purchase bonus of 4,500 euros for around 1.8 million electric cars.

The situation in the automotive industry remains tense

According to KBA, a total of around 2.8 million cars were newly registered in Germany last year. That was around one percent less than the year before and around a quarter less than in 2019, the last year before the corona pandemic. The number of new registrations in December was around 224,700 vehicles, more than 7 percent below the level of the same month last year.