FLENSBURG (dpa-AFX) - Interest in new electric cars is currently low among potential buyers in Germany. Last month, 30,762 all-electric cars were newly registered - 36.8 percent fewer than in July 2023, according to the Federal Motor Transport Authority. The share of all new car registrations in Germany in July was 12.9%.

This confirms a trend. Sales of electric cars have been faltering for months, with new registrations significantly lower than in the previous year. Just under 215,000 electric cars have been registered in Germany since January, which corresponds to 12.6 percent of all new registrations. In the first seven months of the previous year, there were 268,926 electric cars, accounting for 16.4 percent of all new registrations.

Even new models are not improving demand

"Sales of electric cars are disappointing, electric cars are currently slow sellers," says Constantin Gall from the consultancy EY about the new figures. There are still considerable reservations about electric cars among large sections of the population. "The high prices, the very limited range of affordable small electric cars, the drop in prices for used electric cars are viewed just as critically as the range problems, long charging times and the patchy charging infrastructure," explains Gall. Even new models with longer ranges and shorter charging times have not changed the poor development in demand.

The German government has set a target of 15 million electric cars on the road in Germany by 2030. At present, this target hardly seems achievable. According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority, 1.4 million purely electric cars were registered in Germany as of January 1.

Number of all new registrations well below pre-pandemic level

A total of 238,263 new cars were registered in Germany in July, 2.1% fewer than in the same month last year. "There is still a large gap to the pre-crisis level: sales in July were 28% below the level of July 2019," analyzes the consultancy EY. In the year to date, almost 500,000 fewer new cars have been sold in Germany than in the same period in 2019.

The business climate in the automotive industry calculated by the Ifo Institute underpins the tense situation: in July, the indicator fell to minus 18.3 points after minus 9.5 points in June. This was reported by the Munich-based economic research institute. "The automotive industry is slipping further into crisis," says automotive expert Anita Wolfl.

According to the survey, car companies assess both their current situation and their expectations for the next three months as worse than in June. According to Ifo, plant capacity utilization has fallen to 77.7 percent, nine percentage points below the long-term average. Export expectations have also fallen sharply./nif/DP/ngu