Market for Used Electric Cars Growing - From a Low Level

The market for used electric cars is still small but growing rapidly. In the first half of the year, purely electric vehicles accounted for 2.19 percent of ownership transfers nationwide, according to an analysis of figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority by the dpa. A year ago, it was just 1.25 percent. The shares are a bit higher in Bavaria with 2.62 percent, Hamburg with 2.5 percent, and Baden-Württemberg with 2.44 percent. The lowest values can be found in Saxony-Anhalt with 1.18 percent and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with 1.28 percent. 

Despite the significant increase, electric vehicles still play a much smaller role in the used market compared to new registrations. For the latter, the share of electric vehicles in the first half of the year was much higher at 12.5 percent. And the ranking of states with the highest shares is slightly different, with Baden-Württemberg leading with 15.6 percent of new registrations being electric, followed by Schleswig-Holstein (15.0) and Berlin (14.7 percent). Bavaria ranks only fifth with 13.1 percent. Saxony-Anhalt remains at the bottom with 7.2 percent.  A comparison in absolute numbers also shows the lag in the used market: in the first half of the year, there were 71,462 ownership transfers for electric vehicles but 184,125 new registrations - while for all cars together, there were more than twice as many ownership transfers as new registrations.