Without support, hardly any sales
100,000 electric cars become shelf warmers in Germany
04.06.2024, 15:00
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An expert is sounding the alarm: more and more electric vehicles are not being sold. Automotive researcher Werner Olle now estimates that there are 100,000 such cases. Although exports are increasing, they are not making up for the poor business in Germany.
According to an analysis by Chemnitz-based car experts, tens of thousands of electric cars are sitting in storage in Germany. Last year, there was a record number of unsold vehicles, explained automotive researcher Werner Olle. He estimated the backlog at around 100,000.
Many electric cars have not found their way to customers, but are parked in parking lots near factories, at dealers or in ports. This affects vehicles from German manufacturers as well as imports. The reason for this is the abrupt end of the electric car subsidy, which has caused domestic demand to suffer. The state subsidy ended suddenly in December of last year. Experts then feared that German customers might be increasingly interested in electric vehicles from China and other countries because they are cheaper than German models.
Nevertheless, the Federal Statistical Office reported in May that the export of electric cars had increased significantly last year. According to the report, 786,000 such vehicles worth 36 billion euros were exported. That was an increase of 58 percent. This means that one in four new cars sold abroad from Germany had a purely electric drive.
Exports do not compensate for lack of domestic business
However, “the export valve cannot heal all wounds,” warned Olle. Stockpiling production is expensive and can only be reduced with discounts. The figures show a large-scale decoupling between production and domestic demand.
Volkswagen recently announced plans to offer electric cars for 25,000 euros from 2026. A year later, there will be models for an even lower price. CEO Oliver Blume assured at the announcement at the end of May that the cars would be built in Europe: “It’s about entry-level electric mobility from Europe for Europe.”
Tesla, on the other hand, seems to be taking a different path and has abandoned plans to bring a cheap electric car onto the market, as two insiders told Reuters in April. Company boss Elon Musk then accused the news agency of lying. At the same time, he also renewed his announcement that he plans to introduce so-called robotaxis this year.