Every fifth new private car is an electric vehicle
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In August, approximately 207,000 passenger cars were newly registered in Germany. This represents a 5% increase compared to the same month last year, i.e., August 2024. It should be noted that there was one fewer working day available this time. If the number of working days had been the same as the previous year, the growth would even be 8% mathematically.
Looking at the individual sales channels, car rental companies and manufacturers each achieved an increase of 21% – the largest percentage growth. Private registrations also increased by seven percent, although this was mainly due to the weak prior-year month. In the business customer segment, however, the situation remains difficult: new registrations in the fleet sector fell by two percent. After adjusting for the missing working day, there is at least a slight increase of around one percent.
Overall, demand for new passenger cars has thus stabilized at a rather low level. The cumulative backlog compared to the previous year's result has decreased to 1.7% – enough room to possibly even achieve a small increase by the end of the year.
Electric vehicles are driving the market
The strongest growth is in electric cars, with an increase of 46%, and plug-in hybrids, with 77%, while sales of conventional internal combustion engines continue to decline. It is often assumed that the increase in electric cars is mainly due to tactical self-registrations. However, official registration figures clearly refute this assumption.
As in July (+72 percent), the private market was also the leader in percentage growth of fully electric vehicles in August (+61 percent). The share of pure electric cars in private new registrations has now been above 20 percent for the third consecutive month – meaning that about one in five private new car buyers is now choosing an e-car.