In the whole of 2022, Tesla sold more electric cars in Germany than the largest German carmaker, Volkswagen. Now VW is again just ahead of the competitor from the USA.
Wolfsburg-based automaker Volkswagen has recaptured the top position in Germany for pure electric cars from Tesla. With 41,475 first registrations in the first seven months of the year, VW is again just ahead of its US competitor, which came up with 40,289 cars, according to current figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA). At the end of the first half of 2022 and also for the whole of 2022, Tesla was still ahead.
As of the end of July, Mercedes followed with 20,613 first registrations ahead of Audi with 16,786, BMW with 15,987 and Hyundai with 15,411. Overall, the KBA registered 268,926 first-time registrations of purely electric cars from January to July. With combustion engines, the number was a good 1.64 million.
VW ID.4 and ID.5 most popular
In May, the privately financed American climate protection organization ICCT attested that BMW and Volkswagen had made great progress in switching from combustion engines to electric motors. According to the “Global Automaker Rating 2022” report, German automakers came out well ahead in the overall assessment of the three categories of market dominance, technological performance and strategic vision. However, the electric car manufacturer Tesla came out on top with a clear lead with 83 points, followed by the Chinese car manufacturer BYD with 73 points.
Among the alternative drives, the ID.4 and ID.5 from Volkswagen were sold the most. However, the most popular across all drive divisions from Volkswagen was the VW Golf.
New chief financial officer for Tesla
Meanwhile, Tesla surprisingly announced a change at the top of the finance department. The previous CFO Zachary Kirkhorn will resign on Friday after four years, Tesla announced yesterday. Successor as “Master of Coin” or “Lord of the coin”, as the office is called at Tesla, is the previous chief accountant Vaibhav Taneja. He will take on the finance department in addition to his previous role. Kirkhorn will remain with Tesla through the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition. Tesla shares on the US stock exchange Nasdaq fell by around three percent.
Personal reasons for resignation?
Reasons for the change were not given. Kirkhorn steered Tesla out of the red and was considered one of the few managers who got along with eccentric company boss Musk. The financial expert was even traded as the successor at the top of Tesla because Musk, in addition to the e-car builder, also runs the companies SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company and is the owner of the short message platform X, which until recently was still called Twitter. “Being part of this company is a special experience and I am extremely proud of the work we have done together since I joined the company over 13 years ago,” Kirkhorn said in a post on LinkedIn.
Kirkhorn’s staying until the end of the year shows his resignation must be for personal reasons, said Gene Munster, a partner at Deepwater Asset Management. “And the personal reasons are probably because Elon Musk is pretty tough to work with. And he’s done that for 13 years.”