Status: 03/23/2023 12:20 p.m
Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW and Co. exported half a million electric cars abroad last year. Recently, however, almost five times more “combustion engines” than electric vehicles have rolled off the assembly line in Germany.
Last year, German manufacturers delivered around 500,000 e-cars abroad worth 24.2 billion euros. This was announced by the Federal Statistical Office today. That was 65.2 percent more than in 2021. The most important customer last year was Great Britain with a quantitative share of 14.0 percent. It is followed by the USA with 13.1 percent.
There was also a sharp increase in imports: a total of 358,000 electric cars worth 10.5 billion euros were imported, an increase of 22.2 percent.
China buys the most “combustion engines”
Exports of “combustion engines”, on the other hand, fell slightly. A total of 1.48 million cars worth 55.5 billion euros were exported in the three most important displacement classes for passenger cars exclusively with combustion engines, 0.3 percent less than in 2021. The most important customer country for this type of drive was the People’s Republic of China with a share of 14 .0 percent, followed by the USA with 11.9 percent.
Imports of internal combustion engines also fell, to around 1.0 million such cars worth 23.5 billion euros. This corresponds to a minus of 12.8 percent compared to 2021.
Uncertainty about future EU rules
With the future of internal combustion engines being debated within the EU, their future appeal to buyers is in doubt. Berlin and Brussels are currently fighting over the question of whether cars with this drive may still be registered in the EU after 2035.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, the German automotive industry in this country still mainly produces cars with classic combustion engines. However, the production of electric cars is increasing significantly. In the first three quarters of 2022, around 375,600 electric cars worth almost 16.2 billion euros were produced. That was 66.2 percent more than in the same period last year.
After a significant drop in production in 2021, cars with only combustion engines were produced slightly more in the first three quarters of 2022: A total of 1.7 million “combustion engines” rolled off the assembly line – almost five times more than electric cars. Compared to the first three quarters of the previous year, this was an increase of 5.7 percent.
Plug-in hybrids less popular
In the case of hybrid-powered passenger cars, the development of exports was mixed. Last year, 640,500 so-called mild hybrids, in which the electric motor only supports the combustion drive, were exported abroad – 16.4 percent more than in 2021. 272,000 hybrids were imported, an increase of almost a third.
In the case of the so-called plug-in hybrids, which cover shorter distances than fully-fledged and externally rechargeable e-cars, exports fell by four percent to 253,300 vehicles.
Auto industry massively increases sales
According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), around 471,000 purely electric cars were newly registered in 2022, an increase of 32.2 percent compared to the previous year (356,000 new registrations). In contrast, there were 1.3 million new registrations of passenger cars with combustion engines. Electric cars thus accounted for 17.7 percent of all new registrations. In 2017, e-cars accounted for 0.7 percent of all new passenger car registrations.
In terms of sales, the automotive industry is the largest sector of the manufacturing sector in Germany. A total of 63 companies generated record sales of 385.1 billion euros with the manufacture of passenger cars and car engines in 2022, also due to the increased prices. This corresponds to 17.4 percent of the total turnover of the industry in Germany. Compared to the previous year, sales in the automotive industry increased by almost a third.