Car production noticeably on the rise in July

Thanks to two additional working days compared to the same month last year, domestic car production reached a volume of 328,600 units in July, an increase of 13% compared to the same month last year. A good 2.4mn cars have been manufactured in Germany since January, 4% fewer than in the same period last year. The pre-crisis level still remains well undercut: compared to the pre-crisis year of 2019, domestic car production after seven months of the current year was 15% lower.

Exports developed even more dynamically than production in the past month: In July, 275,900 brand-new cars were exported from production facilities in Germany (+17%). Since January, almost 1.9mn new cars have been exported, 1% less than in the same period last year. In addition, after seven months, exports are still almost 12% below the pre-crisis level of 2019.

Compared to the same month last year, 12% more orders from domestic sources were registered in July of this year. However, this significant increase is put into perspective when you consider that the comparable month (July 2023) was extremely weak. Incoming orders from abroad were 2% higher than the previous year's level in the past month. Overall, the number of orders in July grew by 3% compared to July of the previous year. After the first seven months of this year, a good 3% more orders were recorded than in the same period last year.

In July, however, new registrations on the German car market fell slightly compared to the same month last year, despite two additional working days. A total of 238,300 new cars were registered last month. This was around 2% less than in July of the previous year. New registrations fell in particular due to a pull-forward effect that had already been noticeable in the previous month. New commercial registrations in particular were brought forward to June. The background to this is a new EU type approval regulation. Due, among other things, to the recent decline in new car registrations, the gap compared to pre-crisis levels remains high: New registrations last month were a good 28% below the sales level of 2019. Over the course of the year, growth weakened somewhat compared to the previous year, but remains positive overall: After the first seven months of the year, 1.71mn new cars have been registered to date, a good 4% more than in the same period last year. Compared to the pre-crisis year of 2019, however, sales over the course of the year are down by almost 22%.

The German market for electric cars slipped again significantly into the red in July compared to the same month last year. This means that the market for electric cars has performed weaker than new registrations overall for the sixth month in a row. Sales of electric cars have therefore remained well behind the dynamics of the overall market over the course of the year. In detail: a total of 45,600 electric cars (BEV, PHEV, FCEV) were newly registered in July. This was almost 28% fewer than a year earlier. After seven months, a total of around 319,300 new registrations of electric cars were registered. Sales of electric vehicles in the current year are therefore 12% below the previous year's level.

Purely battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) in particular are currently continuing to develop undynamically: 30,800 BEVs were newly registered in July, almost 37% fewer than in the same month last year. In the first seven months, a total of almost 214,900 BEVs were registered. In the current year, new BEV registrations are accordingly well under the previous year’s level by a fifth (–20%). The PHEV segment has recently developed somewhat better than the market as a whole: 14,800 newly registered units were a good 3% more than in July of the previous year. In the first seven months, a total of 104,400 PHEVs were newly registered, almost 12% more than in the same period last year.