Significantly more new cars were registered in Germany last year than in 2022. VW vehicles, the color gray, and SUVs were popular.
Significantly more new cars were registered in Germany in 2023. New car registrations rose by 7.3 percent to 2.84 million for the year as a whole, as the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) announced today in Flensburg. In particular, the number of new commercial registrations increased significantly, while slightly fewer private cars were newly registered than in 2022. The share of new commercial registrations was 67.1 percent.
A decline of 23 percent in December dampened the positive trend. The German luxury car manufacturers BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche each recorded double-digit growth in 2023. Volkswagen only grew by just under eight percent, but remained the best-selling brand with a market share of 18.8 percent.
Best seller SUV
Among imported brands, Chinese brands such as Great Wall Motor (GWM) and Nio recorded significant growth, and the luxury brand Lotus also recorded strong growth. In contrast, Lada and Mitsubishi were less in demand – they struggled in Germany with declines of more than 30 percent compared to the previous year.
SUVs were the most frequently newly registered last year, with a share of 30 percent, followed by the compact class. As before, the most popular colors for new cars were gray (31.6 percent), black (26.5 percent) and white (20.7 percent).
Electric car share at 18 percent
More than a third of all new cars in 2023 had a gasoline engine, which means the proportion was even slightly higher than in 2022. The diesel share, on the other hand, shrank slightly to 17.1 percent. Hybrid models had a market share of 29.5 percent, pure electric cars had 18.4 percent – an increase of 11 percent compared to 2022.
Despite the abrupt subsidy stop for purely electric cars, significantly more such vehicles were newly registered in December than a month before. In the last month of 2023, around 54,700 new electric cars hit the roads; in November there were still 45,000 electric cars. Numerous car manufacturers subsequently announced that they would pay for the premiums themselves. For many buyers, the price of the vehicle has ultimately not changed.
German brands are stronger again in the US market
Sales figures on the US car market are also showing an upward trend again after several difficult years. However, the peak times before the corona pandemic are still not in sight; experts are only expecting small increases in the new year due to increased interest rates and high new car prices. The majority of German manufacturers can score points again in the current situation and want to continue to attack the world’s second most important car market in the coming years.
Last year, car manufacturers sold a total of around 15.5 million cars and small commercial vehicles on the US market, according to data from the industry service Wards Intelligence. That was a good twelve percent more than in the weak period of the previous year, when delivery problems as a result of the Covid pandemic had significantly restricted the production and delivery of cars. This has improved noticeably in 2023. Nevertheless, the market remains far behind the figures of around 17 million cars in the five years before the pandemic.
Meanwhile, German car manufacturers are currently coping better with the situation. The car manufacturer BMW increased its sales in the USA by a full nine percent last year. Volkswagen was even able to sell 22 percent more cars than the year before.