There are more Trabis than Teslas in Germany
Trabi safari: The “racing cardboard” is still very popular with tourists. (Photo: Shutterstock / Erika Cristina Manno)
No time right now?
According to an evaluation of the registration statistics, there are currently more Trabis than Teslas on German roads. Of course, this is only a snapshot and will soon be history.
In April 1991 the last Trabant, also known as Trabi or “racing cardboard”, rolled off the assembly line at the Sachsenring factory in Zwickau / Meerane. But the two-stroke engine, which was coveted before 1989 – with waiting times of several years – and then all the more despised afterwards, cannot be killed. 30 years after the end of production, there are still more than 38,000 Trabis on Germany’s roads – and thus more than Tesla electric cars.
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Registered cars: Trabi beats Tesla
This is the result of Ferdinand Dudenhöffer’s CAR Institute (Center Automotive Research) after evaluating the current registration statistics of the Federal Motor Transport Authority. Accordingly, there were exactly 38,173 Trabis registered in January 2021. The number of Tesla electric cars registered was 34,000. The Trabis’s lead over Tesla of around 4,000 registered vehicles is likely to be used up in the course of this year in view of the current electric car boom.
It is surprising, however, that according to statistics, the number of registered Trabis has increased by a few thousand in recent years. As of January 1, 2017, the Federal Motor Transport Authority had reported 34,449 registered Trabis. In the past twelve months alone, more than 1,000 Trabis are said to have been newly registered. In this context, Dudenhöffer spoke of the fact that “some of the old two-stroke engines had been given a little new life in recent years”, such as N-TV reports.
3.7 million Trabis built
A total of around 3.1 million were produced in the 30-year production phase between 1957/58 and 1991 Trabis made. Only the last model, the Trabant 1.1 following the Trabant 601 and built in 1990 and 1991, had a water-cooled four-stroke engine under a Volkswagen license.
In its evaluation, the CAR Institute also found that the number of cars currently registered in Germany is around 48.2 million. That is 6.5 million more than in 2010. VW remains the most strongly represented car in Germany – with a share of a good 20 percent. Behind them are Mercedes and Opel by a large margin. However, the latter has had to give up in recent years. The number of Opel models has decreased by around 1.1 million since 2010, it is said at T-Online.
