Car sales increased slightly in 2022

Ein a strong final spurt in new registrations for passenger cars for 2022 brought a slight increase compared to 2021. From the level of the years before the crisis to 2019, the German car market yet far away. According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), the number of new registrations in December 2022 was 314,318, 38.1 percent higher than in December 2021.

For the whole of 2022, this results in a slight increase of 1.1 percent in new registrations compared to 2021. A total of around 2.65 million new passenger cars were registered in 2022. However, this value is far removed from those of previous years. Even in the year of the Covid crisis, 2020, the value of new registrations was significantly higher at 2.92 million. In 2019, the value of 3.61 million was reached.

SUV has the largest share

The fact that as many new cars as possible with these drive types were registered before the end of the state subsidy for plug-in hybrids and before the subsidy for battery electric cars was reduced contributed to the increase in the number of registrations in December. At 362,093, the total number of plug-in hybrids registered in 2022 was 11.3 percent higher than in the previous year. A total of 470,559 battery-electric passenger cars (BEV) were registered, 32.2 percent more than in 2021.

The proportion of BEVs among newly registered cars thus rose to 17.7 percent in 2022. In contrast, in 2022, 32.6 percent of newly registered passenger cars were still powered by a petrol engine and 17.8 percent by a diesel engine. Among the market segments for newly registered passenger cars, the SUV had the largest share at 29.3 percent, followed by compact cars at 15.9 percent.