Now the new environmental bonus is taking revenge
Electric cars are in demand as rarely, last year more new Stromer were registered than ever before. But the boom appears to have come to an abrupt halt. In January 2023, the new registrations crash. The reason for this is clear only at first glance.
Huge minus for electric cars: 2023 has a bad start
While the total number of newly registered cars in Germany fell only slightly in January 2023, electric cars crashed heavily. 18,100 new vehicles with purely battery-electric drives is recorded by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) for the first month of the year. Compared to the previous year, there is a minus of 13.2 percent.
But especially in comparison with December 2022, the number of new registrations has fallen dramatically: the last month of 2022 saw an increase of more than 100,000 new electric cars in one month for the first time ever. Of these are in the following weeks less than a fifth remained.
It’s even tougher though plug-in hybrids (PHEV) hit: Less than 9,000 pieces were newly approved for road traffic in January (source: dpa via Heise online). In December, the KBA registered more than 70,000. Compared to January 2022, 53.2 percent fewer PHEVs were registered.
Environmental bonus to blame? E-cars and subsidies collapse at the same time
The strong minus in electric cars and especially in the plug-in hybrids is likely to be related to the new regulation of the environmental bonus since the beginning of the year. Since then, there has no longer been government support for the purchase of hybrid vehicles. Pure electric cars get a maximum of 4,500 euros from the federal government, instead of up to 6,000 euros as before. The manufacturer shares have also fallen accordingly.
The incentive to buy an e-car is therefore lower than it was in 2022 – one of the reasons why December in particular, as the last month with full funding, was such a success for the electricians.
A lot is changing this year, and not just for e-car funding:
However, the minus can not only be justified with the lower environmental bonus. The long delivery times in the industry – not infrequently especially with e-cars – ensure that customers have to wait for their new cars. Among the approximately 18,000 e-cars, there should hardly be any that were only ordered in January.
It remains to be seen whether the current figures show the customers’ foresight or whether the real slump in new registrations is yet to come. Overall, a good 2.6 percent fewer cars were registered in January 2023 than in the same month last year.
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