Fluctuating sales figures for passenger cars
The coronavirus year 2020 was a difficult year for the car industry in Germany. According to the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), the number of registered cars rose to 48.2 million, representing an increase of 1.1%. In the previous year, however, the number of cars had risen by 2.7% compared to the previous year.
In its January 2021 forecast, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) predicted a significant recovery.
Around 3.15 million cars were expected to be sold in Germany. An optimistic scenario, even if such figures are still a long way from pre-crisis levels. In 2019, there were still 3.6 million new registrations. In July, however, this forecast had to be put into perspective - the reason for this was a "chip shortage".
In a press release, the KBA puts the number of new registrations in the period from January to August at 1.8 million cars.
The chip shortage is significantly slowing down production and therefore car sales. It remains to be seen whether 3 million registrations can still be achieved in the current year.
Electric drives on the rise
Something is happening with drive systems. Sales of cars with alternative drive systems (battery, plug-in, fuel cell, gas, hydrogen) are gradually gaining momentum. In the months from January to August, they accounted for an impressive 39.9% of all new registrations.
421,567 new cars, or 23.2%, were equipped with an electric drive (battery, plug-in, hydrogen), an increase in registrations for this type of drive of 152.2%. The pure battery drive increased by +160.5%. According to the KBA, the German brands with the highest proportion of new registrations for electric drives include Mercedes (30.8% of the fleet), Porsche (30.6%), AUDI (24.9%), BMW (23.8%) and VW (21.4%). Import brands with a high proportion of electric vehicles include Tesla (100%), Volvo (43.2%) and DS (42.3%).
Even though sales of electric cars have more than doubled compared to the same period last year, there is still a long way to go before they are complete electromobility. At the end of 2020, around 300,000 cars registered in Germany had a battery drive and just over 1 million had a hybrid drive. In relation to the total population of 48.2 million cars, this is 0.6% or 2.1% of all cars, i.e. just 2.7% in total.
Car data - spatial view
Germany is car country. At Nexiga, we calculate variousmarket datadown to house level on the basis of detailed information according to different criteria. Most of the data is available at municipal andZip code level.
Share of cars with electric drive
Our map shows the proportion of passenger cars with all-electric drive systems among all registered passenger cars as of December 31, 2020 at zip code area level in Germany.
The distribution shows that the highest shares are found inaffluent urban regions.The metropolitan areas of Munich, Stuttgart, Rhine-Main and Hamburg in particular have a relatively high number of electric vehicles. However, the proportion of electric vehicles is also high in some rural areas, particularly in Schleswig-Holstein. In the new federal states, on the other hand, there are hardly any electrically powered cars outside the urban centers.
E-mobility affinity
The following map shows the affinity of households for electromobility at zip code level, calculated by Nexiga on the basis of a wide range of information on socio-demographics, purchasing power and consumption style. Here too, the highest affinities are achieved in the western German conurbations.
The comparison with the adjacent map of drive types is particularly interesting. This clearly shows where high potential and growth can be expected. You can also find more information on the topic of automotive in our automotive database.
You can also find further information on our market data in our data search - also from the motor vehicle sector - particularly useful for your geo analyses.