VDIK: German passenger car market 2017 closes with 2.7 percent plus

Bad Homburg. The year 2017 concludes with 3,441,262 new passenger car registrations. This represents the highest volume of the German passenger car market in eight years corresponding to an increase of almost 90,000 units or 2.7 percent compared to the previous year.

VDIK President Reinhard Zirpel: “The growth of the market is based on the above-average increase in private registrations and, especially in the second half of the year, on the very successful diesel exchange programs of almost all brands.”

In 2017, just under 2 million petrol-powered vehicles were newly registered, an increase of 14 percent. Registrations of diesel-powered passenger cars fell by 13 percent and amounted to million registrations by the end of the year. Their share of total sales dropped from 46 to 39 percent. Alternative drives increased by 80 percent compared to the previous year and accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales in 2017.

Private registrations grew by 4.4 percent to million units. The fleet market reached again a new record volume in 2017 with more than 840,000 units.

The VDIK member companies increased their sales by 7.6 percent in 2017 and sold 1,313,725 passenger cars in Germany. They increased their overall market share from 36.4 to 38.2 percent, the best result since the association was founded, not taking the year of the environmental bonus into account.