Ah, my fellow Germans, so predictable. It happens after every crisis: After selfmedicated austerity (money or no money, does not matter,) at one point, all secretly get together and agree that too much restraint is a bad thing. Then, they go out and buy cars. More cars, bigger cars, faster cars.
And so, it happens again. New car sales in Germany, Europe’s largest and most influential car market, rose 8.1 percent in September to 280.689 units. This according to a count of registrations, performed by the German Kraftfahrtbundesamt. This is no one-month wonder: January through September, 2.4 million new cars were registered, 10.8 percent more than in the same period of 2010.
Big is back, obscene gasoline prices notwithstanding. Large vans grew 44.5 percent, SUVs 28.3 percent, the Upper-class added 36.8 percent. Compact cars are Germany’s biggest segment, but it’s more or less stagnant at 1.8 percent above. Small vehicles get smaller: The mini segment shrunk by 13.8 percent. Surprisingly, the government agency counts pure 1,786 EVs and 9,214 new hybrids for all of 2011. As cars get bigger, diesel is more en vogue and at 46.4 percent of all newly registered cars.
Not much change in the manufacturer dept. Volkswagen is unassailable Nummer Eins with a market share of 21.9 percent. BMW is second with 9.2 percent, followed by Mercedes with 8.8 percent. The whole report (in German) is available here.
