The KBA published the current number of registered vehicles at the beginning of the year. Compared to the previous year, the vehicle stock increased again by 0.9 percent. A total of 60.68 million vehicles, i.e. passenger cars, trucks and two-wheelers, were registered at the beginning of the year. Passenger cars make up the majority at 49.1 million. The number of trucks rose slightly to 3.74 million (+ 0.7 percent). As a result, the vehicle population in Germany as a whole has increased again. Most of the registered vehicles are privately owned.
Overall, the number of vehicles with alternative drives has increased. The situation is different for petrol and diesel vehicles. The number have declined slightly here; diesel: -2 percent, petrol: -1.1 percent. Another noticeable development is that the vehicles on the road are getting increasingly older. The new average age is 10.3 years. The strongest segment is the compact class with a share of 23.3 percent, followed by small cars with a share of 17.7 percent. However, both segments are showing a slight decline.
A look at the emission classes shows that passenger cars in the Euro 6 emission class have increased by 6.9 percent and now account for 46.1 percent. Emission classes 4 and 5, on the other hand, have decreased by -7 or -3.9 percent.
SUV numbers continue to increase
The segment with the strongest growth is the SUV group. This segment increased by 11.2 percent. This means that their share of total passenger cars now amounts to 12.2 percent. As the demand for SUVs continues, many manufacturers have different SUV variants in the range, so many facelifts and new models can be expected.
Development of alternative drives
There was a significant increase in the number of alternative drives, as these (electric cars (BEV)) increased by 39.1 percent in total. This means that 1.4 million of these vehicles are on the road in total. There has also been an increase of 24.5 percent in hybrid vehicles. A total of 2.9 million vehicles are now on the road here.
The most popular brands
Volkswagen is still the most popular brand and around one fifth of passengers cars on the road in Germany is a VW. A total of 10.24 percent of the vehicles are currently a VW, even though there was only a slight increase of 0.4% here. Second and third place go to Mercedes and Opel with 4.7 and 4.0 million vehicles respectively. The most popular import brand is Skoda, with an increase of 3 percent to a total of 2.65 million vehicles. The MG brand from the Chinese company SAIC Motor launched in Germany in 2021. Around 37,000 vehicles from this brand are now on German roads.