Vehicle registrations in January 2025: electric cars strong as expected

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The Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) publishes the registration figures for January. The current difficult economic situation is reflected in a slight drop of 2.8 percent in new registrations compared to the same month last year. A total of 207,640 passenger cars were sold. The proportion of commercially registered new cars was 63.9 percent (minus 12.1 compared to the same month last year) and the proportion of private registrations was 33.0 percent (plus 9.7). However, the turn of the year is also responsible for a special boom with an increase of 53.4 percent in electric cars.

Special boom in electric car sales

With 34,498 units, electric cars (BEV) accounted for 16.6 percent of new registrations, an increase of 53.5 percent compared to the same month last year. The main reason for this is that manufacturers have postponed as many new BEV registrations as possible from 2024 to 2025 to improve the CO₂ fleet limits that were tightened at the beginning of the year. This is intended to avoid possible penalties for failing to meet the limits. The limits are set individually for each manufacturer; on average, the CO₂ emissions of new car registrations fell by 9.5 percent to 113.6 g/km. Sales of electric cars in Germany fell significantly in 2024. Only around 380,600 BEVs were newly registered in 2024, almost 27.5 percent less than in 2023. Their share of new registrations reached 13.5 percent.

76,964 passenger cars registered in January were hybrids. They achieved a share of 37.1 percent and increased by 15.7 percent. Plug-in hybrids accounted for 17,712 units, an increase of 23.1 percent to a share of 8.5. 62,358 passenger cars were equipped with a petrol engine, a share of 30.0 with a decrease of 23.7 percent. Of these, 859 were equipped with LPG, which corresponds to a 54.8 percent decrease to 0.4 percent. 32,956 diesel cars represent a decrease of 19.5 percent to 15.9 percent. No new registrations were registered for natural gas or hydrogen drive systems.

The most successful domestic brand was VW

Among the successful domestic passenger car brands, VW increased its sales by 11.6 to 22.3 percent, making it the strongest German brand. Ford did 3.9 percent better and achieved a market share of 3.7 percent, Mini rose by 3.8 percent to 1.1 percent, BMW made a plus of 0.9 and increased to 7.8 percent.

Other German brands recorded declines compared to the same month last year: Smart fell by 58.5 percent to 0.2 percent, Opel fell by 45.1 percent to 3.3 percent, while Porsche's market share fell by 37.2 percent to just 1.1 percent. The economic crisis did not hit Mercedes quite as hard, with a drop of 7.5 to 9.5 percent and Audi with 5.1 to 7.1 percent.

Among the import brands with at least five-digit new registrations, Seat made the biggest gains with an increase of 37.5 percent and a share of 6.7 percent compared to the same month last year. Skoda, on the other hand, was down one percent on the same month last year, but remained the import brand with the highest share of eight percent.

The higher-volume import brands Renault (up 38.1 to 2.0 percent), Volvo (up 33.0 to 2.6 percent), Kia (up 2.5 to 2.4 percent) and Peugeot (up 1.5 to 2.4 percent) also achieved growth in new registrations with a combined total of more than 4,000 new registrations. Hyundai (down 5.2 to 3.0 percent), Dacia (down 13.6 to 2.8 percent) and Toyota (down 19.0 to 2.6 percent) suffered declining sales.

No end in sight for SUVs and so-called off-road vehicles

With a market share of 30.6 percent, most new cars were SUVs, selling 5.9 percent more than 30 years after their "invention". Despite a decline of 16.6 percent, the compact class achieved a share of 17.4 percent, making it the second strongest segment ahead of the vehicles designated as "off-road vehicles" by the KBA, which increased by 2.5 to 13.4 percent compared to the same month last year. Small cars, of which 7.5 percent fewer were sold, corresponding to a share of 10.9 percent.

The winner was the upper mid-size class with a plus of 98.8 percent compared to percent in the previous month and a share of 5.3 percent. This was followed by the utility classes, which improved by 36.6 percent to 5.4 percent market share, and the minivans, which still managed to gain 0.9 percent because they performed better by 6.7 percent. The segments minis with 2.2 percent share and minus 40.3 percent, sports cars with 0.7 percent share after 35.4 percent loss, mid-size with 7.7 after 18.8 percent deterioration and luxury class with 0,7 percent share and a drop of 17.5 percent are among the losers. As are motorhomes with a 3.6 percent and 1.7[ s

A total of 241,665 motor vehicles and 16,274 trailers were put on the market for the first time. 637,618 motor vehicles and 34,934 trailers changed their registration.

(fpi)