Germany: Plug-In Car Sales Decreased Slightly In May 2022

All-electric car sales increased 9% year-over-year, but plug-in hybrids were down 15%.

By: Mark Kane

Jun 16, 2022 at 8:14am ET

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New passenger car registrations in Germany decreased in May by 10.2% year-over-year to 207,199, which is not a surprise considering the current market situation. On the positive side, the rate of decline slowed down compared to March and April.

Last month, some 52,391 new passenger plug-in electric cars were registered in Germany, which unfortunately is also down 3% year-over-year (compared to a 14% decrease in April). A good thing is that the market share of rechargeable cars improved to 25.3%. That's one in four new cars.

As we can see below, all-electric car sales actually increased in May by 9% year-over-year, which means that the main issue is the slowdown on the plug-in hybrid side.

Results by type:

BEVs: 29,182 – up 9% at 14.1% market share
PHEVs: 23,209 – down 15% at 11.2% market share
Total: 52,391 – down 3% at 25.3% market share

We are cautiously optimistic about the near future because it seems that production of new electric cars in Germany has not only returned to pre-war levels (at least in the case of Volkswagen) but also new plants are ramping-up production (Tesla Giga Berlin, Volkswagen ID.4 in Emden, Volkswagen ID. Buzz in Hanover to name just a few). Tesla is also sending more EVs from China to Europe again.

Plug-in electric car registrations in Germany – May 2022

So far this year, more than 247,000 new passenger plug-in cars were registered in Germany:

BEVs: 135,029 – up 17% at 13.3% market share
PHEVs: 112,677 – down 15% at 11.1% market share
Total: 247,706 – up 0.1% at 24.4% market share

Top brands

According to the official data, this time the Volkswagen brand noted the highest number of new plug-in electric car registrations, ahead of BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz. Volkswagen is also the top one in terms of all-electric cars (4,379 units), while BMW noted the highest number of plug-in hybrids (3,539).

Plug-in car registrations by brands (at least 2,000) last month:

Volkswagen: 5643 - 4379 BEVs and 1264 PHEVs
BMW: 4882 - 1343 BEVs and 3539 PHEVs
Audi: 4289 - 2323 BEVs and 1966 PHEVs
Mercedes-Benz: 3922 - 1881 BEVs and 2041 PHEVs
Hyundai: 3404 - 2469 BEVs and 935 PHEVs
SEAT: 3219 - 837 BEVs and 2382 PHEVs
Opel: 2639 - 2242 BEVs and 397 PHEVs
Kia: 2592 - 962 BEVs and 1630 PHEVs
Ford: 2294 - 334 BEVs and 1960 PHEVs
Skoda: 2239 - 1173 BEVs and 1066 PHEVs
Renault: 2201 - 1831 BEVs and 370 PHEVs

Top models

Last month, among the top all-electric cars were the Opel Corsa-e (1,889), Volkswagen ID.4/ID.5 (1,849), Fiat 500 electric (1,834), Volkswagen ID.3 (1,356), Dacia Spring (1,326), Hyundai Kona Electric (1,323), Skoda Enyaq iV (1,173) Audi e-tron (1,147), smart fortwo EQ (1,135), Volkswagen e-up! (1,123) and Hyundai Ioniq 5 (1,043).

Year-to-date the Tesla Model 3 remains #1, but the Fiat 500 electric is closing in, while the ID.4/ID.5 is approaching the Tesla Model Y.

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The top all-electric models year-to-date: