New registrations of electric vehicles in reverse gear

The German passenger car market recorded a year-on-year decline of 6.2% to 263,844 new registrations in March. However, March 2023 had three more working days. In the first quarter of 2024, passenger car registrations rose by 4.2% year-on-year to 694,785 units. In contrast, new registrations of purely battery electric vehicles (BEV) were down significantly. New BEV registrations fell by 28.9 percent in March and by 14.1 percent in the first quarter.

Reinhard Zirpel, President of the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (VDIK), says: “The moderate increase in the German passenger car market in the first quarter is fundamentally positive. What is worrying, however, is the double-digit decline in electric vehicles, which is also affecting the market as a whole. Unfortunately, customer confidence in the BEV market is more than impaired by the abrupt decision to abolish the electric bonus at the end of 2023. The current discussions about a possible end to the EU’s planned phase-out of combustion engines in 2035 are also counterproductive.”

In March, 31,384 purely battery electric vehicles (BEV) were newly registered in Germany, 28.9 percent fewer than in March 2023. The BEV market share in March was only 11.9 percent (March 2023: 15.7 percent) and 11.7 percent in the first quarter. From January to March, 81,337 BEVs were newly registered, which corresponds to a decline of 14.1% compared to the first quarter of 2023.

New registrations of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) fell slightly by 4.5% in March. 16,016 newly registered plug-in hybrids correspond to a 6.1% share of passenger car registrations. In the period from January to March, plug-in hybrids increased by 19.8% to a total of 44,985 new registrations. BEVs and plug-in hybrids together accounted for 47,400 new registrations in March (-22.2% compared to March of the previous year), while 126,322 electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs) were newly registered in the first quarter (-4.5%).

New registrations of light and heavy commercial vehicles grew slightly by 0.4% to 34,983 units in March. However, there was a significant increase if the same number of working days is used as in March of the previous year. A total of 96,397 new commercial vehicles were registered in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 8.8% compared to the first quarter of last year.