In the battle for the top spot in the German electric car market, Tesla was once again in the lead in the first half of the year, but its lead over top dog VW is melting. According to figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority, 36,400 Teslas and 34,400 pure VW brand electric vehicles were newly registered from January to June. In the second half of the year, the fight for sales could intensify and make Stromer significantly cheaper, as industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer says.
Tesla had snatched the German electric car crown from VW in the second half of 2022. Now Elon Musk’s company has defended its top spot. However, the lead shrank from 7400 to 2000 cars. The market shares of the brands were 16.5 and 15.6 percent of the total of 220,200 newly registered electric cars in Germany. There is a clear gap behind the two leaders. Then follow Mercedes with 16,900, Audi with 14,400 and BMW with 12,800 electric cars in the first half of the year and market shares between 7.7 and 5.8 percent.
Decreased government funding
The German electric car market is weaker than it appears, emphasizes Dudenhöffer. “The registration numbers that we are seeing at the moment show the reality of yesterday.” The current deliveries would come primarily from the order backlog. “Incoming orders, on the other hand, are significantly lower than in 2022.” The main reason is the reduced state funding.
Nevertheless, the number of electric car registrations for the five leading brands has increased compared to the first half of 2022. Measured against the second half of 2022, everyone except Mercedes, which benefits from the electric E-Class, is in the red. Pull-forward effects due to the fall in premiums at the turn of the year also play a role, which caused an extreme final sprint in December and a slump in January.
And many other brands are doing even worse: “In the case of brands with many small cars and the lower middle class, sales have fallen sharply in some cases because the lower premium is particularly noticeable there,” explains Dudenhöffer. This is also reflected in the KBA figures: Renault, Opel, Fiat and a little Hyundai, which were still showing strong figures a year ago, have lost their feathers.
Price war for electric cars expected in Europe
Dudenhöffer also attributes the fact that VW escaped the slump to the fact that the Wolfsburg-based company recently gave more discounts. And that could only have been the beginning: “I expect a fierce price war for electric cars in Europe,” said the industry expert of the German Press Agency. “Tesla has produced significantly more vehicles than it has sold in the last 15 months, and in China the manufacturer can no longer sell its cars on the market with discounts. This is shifting the price war to Europe.”
In this country, this effect is affecting an already weakening market. “At Tesla, prices could fall by a further 5 to 10 percent,” Dudenhöffer expects. It remains to be seen how far the other brands will go. “This may be good news for consumers, but it will cause a few sleepless nights for manufacturers.”
It is also fitting that at the end of June it became known that VW was temporarily reducing electric car production at its plant in Emden, among other things due to longer plant holidays and the elimination of a late shift.
At least at group level, VW does not have to worry about its leading position in the German electric car market for the foreseeable future. If you count the new registrations of the other group brands – 14,400 at Audi, 7800 at Skoda, 5900 at Seat and 2700 at Porsche – the Wolfsburg-based company came up with almost twice as many pure electric vehicles as Tesla and a market share of almost 30 percent in the first half of the year. But there is also potential for concern: Compared to the market share that VW achieves across all drive types, there is a gap of almost 10 percentage points.
