Statistics 2020: Cars are becoming more powerful, faster, and larger.

Despite Decline: Gasoline Engines Still Far Ahead

Among the types of drive, despite a 36 percent decline, gasoline engines remained the best-selling category at 46.7 percent, ahead of pure diesel engines at 28.1 percent, which fell by 28.9 percent. For alternative drives, the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) sees positive signs for the year 2020. Vehicles with hybrid drives (527,864/+120.6%) reached a market share of 18.1 percent, including plug-in hybrids (200,469/+342.1%) with a share of 6.9 percent. Electric cars (194,163/+206.8%) achieved an almost equally high share of 6.7 percent.

"E-mobility has arrived in the middle of mobile society. Positive user experiences, reliable technologies, and a growing range of options make the switch to e-mobility easier. With a continuing trend of around 22 percent registrations for vehicles with electric drives, as seen in the last quarter of 2020, the goal set by the federal government of 7 to 10 million registered electric vehicles in Germany by 2030 can be achieved," said KBA President Richard Damm.

Small cars with battery-electric drives represented the strongest segment in new registrations in 2020 at 29.9 percent. The segment of battery-electric SUVs accounted for just under a fifth (19.9%) of the new registration volume. The compact class reached a similarly high share of 19.6 percent with this type of drive. In total, 394,940 new cars with electric drives were newly registered in 2020. VW brand cars achieved the highest share at 17.4 percent (+608.6% compared to the previous year), followed by Mercedes (14.9% / +499.8%) and Audi (9.0% / +607.9%). Among the 194,163 battery-electric cars, the largest new registration share was also attributed to the VW brand at 23.8 percent, followed by Renault (16.2% / +233.8%) and Tesla (8.6% / +55.9%).

Boom and Inventory: Still a Diminishing Share

The shares of natural gas-powered cars (7,159/-6.1%) and liquefied petroleum gas-powered cars (6,543/-9.8%) remained at 0.2 percent each, on the same low level as the previous year. CO₂ emissions from cars continued to decline in 2020 by 11.0 percent, averaging 139.8 g/km (previous year: 157.0 g/km), at least according to the paper values relevant for registration. These values, especially for PHEVs, often show a significant discrepancy between paper values and real-world consumption, heavily influenced by the use of EV mode. Additionally, the numbers of alternatively powered vehicles in inventory, despite the boom, remain low: the KBA estimates that they increased from 2.4 to 3.6 percent in 2020, including natural gas & co. According to KBA statistics, e-drives including PHEVs account for 1.2 percent of the inventory.

"We expect a recovery in the German car market for 2021. Nevertheless, the very strong pre-Corona levels are unlikely to be reached for the time being," commented Hildegard Müller, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), on the figures. 

From the manufacturers' perspective, December brought a bright spot with 311,394 new registrations, an increase of about ten percent compared to the same month last year. Many private customers purchased a car at the end of the year to benefit from the VAT reduction, analyzed Reinhard Zirpel, President of the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers.

What Does That Mean?

It is schizophrenic: while the climate crisis actually requires more modest, smaller, and slower cars, the trend is moving in the opposite direction, driven by the generous system performance of plug-in hybrids, whose environmental benefits are highly questionable. The fact that this often involves vehicles that belong to the not exactly eco-mobile-friendly SUV category makes it doubly bitter for climate protection. These high-riding and usually space-consuming vehicles need significantly more fuel in real-world use than on paper—and much more electricity than pure electric vehicles. Additionally, the average speeds stated on vehicle documents increasing to 202 km/h is the icing on the cake but also symptomatic of the whole hypocritical debate: talking "green" and driving "black." The gap between verbal openness and real action inertia still seems large. Too large. And somehow, we are still heading mostly in the wrong direction, as if we were detached from reality and stuck somewhere in the gas-guzzling 80s. Please turn around!