Car production in Germany: growth continues to decrease in August

In August, domestic car production reached 266,800 cars, 15% more than in the same month last year. This shows that since May of this year, the growth dynamic has halved, taking into account the number of working days. In May, domestic car production had grown by 30% compared to the same month last year. In the first eight months of this year, production rose by 28% to 2.78mn cars compared to the same period last year. This means that domestic car production for this period is 12% below the level of the pre-crisis year 2019.

The growth momentum in the year to date up to and including the month of July - more recent detailed data is not yet available - comes primarily from electric cars, and in particular the purely battery-electric BEVs. Their production increased by 128% to 589,800 cars, overtaking diesel car production, which amounted to 488,100 units. Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), which are particularly popular abroad, increased by 13% to 170,600 in the first seven months.

After the significant increase in July, exports flattened in August with a slight increase of 2% to 192,500 cars. In the first eight months of this year, 2.09mn cars were exported. That’s 27% more than the same period last year. This means that exports have run almost parallel to domestic car production so far this year.

For the first time in around a year and a half (March 2022), domestic orders increased again. Compared to the same month last year, 7% more orders were registered in August this year. However, the low level from August 2022 must be taken into account here, which caused a base effect. Domestic orders in the past month were 35% below the pre-crisis value in August 2019. In the first eight months, domestic orders fell by 22% compared to the same period last year. Foreign order intake in August was 1% below the prior-year level. Year to date, foreign orders have fallen 5%. Overall – i. e. domestic and foreign orders combined – 7% fewer orders were registered in the first eight months than in the same period last year.

In August, 273,400 new cars were registered in Germany. This corresponds to an increase of 37% compared to the same month last year and is due to a pre-purchase effect: since September 1st, the environmental bonus is no longer available to commercial owners, only to private ones. Thus a temporary boom in new BEV registrations occured, rising them by 171% to 86,650 units. This is the second highest monthly value after December 2022, when the environmental bonus for PHEVs was imminent and there was also a pre-purchase effect. The 86,650 newly registered BEVs in August also mean that almost one in three newly registered cars this month is purely electrically powered. In the year to date, the German passenger car market has grown by 16% to 1.91mn vehicles. This means that the pre-crisis level of 2019 has clearly been undercut by 23%.