There is a lot of talk about the traffic turnaround, but the reality is different. In 2022, the Federal Statistical Office counted more cars than ever before. There were 583 cars per 1000 inhabitants – a new record. “In the past ten years, the car density has increased continuously,” said the authority. In 2012, the figure was still 534 cars per 1,000 inhabitants.
The regional differences are large: Last year, the density was highest in the western federal states of Saarland (660 cars per 1000 inhabitants), Rhineland-Palatinate (634) and Bavaria (625). The city states of Berlin (338), Hamburg (439) and Bremen (443) had the lowest values - “among other things due to a particularly dense public transport network,” as the statisticians explained. Berlin is the only federal state where the number of cars has fallen in the past ten years. While 342 cars per 1000 inhabitants were counted in the federal capital in 2012, there were only 338 last year.
According to figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority, 48.8 million passenger cars were registered in Germany as of January 1, 2023 – more than ever before. According to the calculations, more than three quarters (78 percent) of private households owned at least one car last year. The trend is towards a second or third car: the proportion of households with two cars increased from 24.5 to 27 percent over the ten-year period, the proportion of households with three or more cars rose from 4.1 to 6, 2 percent.
The number has also increased in all other countries of the European Union (EU) over the past ten years. In an EU comparison, Germany was last in eighth place. According to data from the EU statistical authority Eurostat, at the turn of the year 2021/2022 there were the most cars in relation to the population in Poland (687), Luxembourg (681) and Italy (675). The car density was lowest in Romania (400), Latvia (404) and Bulgaria (414).