2020 will be a weak year for new car sales, the corona crisis has almost paralyzed the German car market. Car manufacturers and dealers are now trying to save what can be saved with discounts.
After the corona-related market slump, automakers and dealers are slowly stepping on the gas in their sales promotion campaigns. The starting point for advertising has been the reduction in VAT by three points since the beginning of July, according to the regular discount study by the CAR Institute. The increased government subsidies for electric cars, on the other hand, hardly had a stimulating effect on the overall market, criticized study director Ferdinand Dudenhöffer.
Manufacturers and dealers used the state's VAT requirements to advertise their own discounts and special equipment. Nissan, Renault, Seat, VW and Opel have already announced that they will "suspend" VAT on combustion engines. Dudenhöffer expects that some of these promotions will be offset against other discounts. Nevertheless, compared to the prices called up so far, there should be a "cherry on the cake" for the customers, says the auto expert.
Jump start for the Golf 8
Already in June, the most popular models showed higher discounts from Internet providers. Here the new Golf 8 plays a major role, the sale of which after the bumpy start with software problems with comparatively high discounts above 20 percent will be pushed to the list price. For July, Dudenhöffer expects prices to drop further from Internet providers.
In the corona pandemic, the German new car market collapsed massively, with new registrations in the first half of the year at 1.2 million, almost 35 percent below the comparative value from the previous year. During the shutdown period, retailers and manufacturers had given only a few incentives to buy, but hoped for a new edition of the "scrappage bonus".
Only cars with electric battery or hybrid drives, for which there are higher government subsidies, have increased significantly. This trend, however, largely misses the private customer market, criticized Dudenhöffer, who had also endorsed additional purchase incentives for combustion engines.
In the first five months of the year, just 21,000 electric cars and plug-in hybrids were newly registered for private customers, a share of 5.9 percent. "This is a niche and misses the market," said Dudenhöffer. His verdict: "The current upswing in the Chinese car market is helping workers in German car factories far more than the stimulus package from the German government."
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