The automotive industry in Germany is the nation’s largest industry sector, accounting for nearly 20% of total German industry revenue and directly supporting 820,000 jobs. Germany is Europe’s #1 automotive market in terms of both global automotive sales (2017: EUR 423 billion) & production (5.65 million vehicles). It maintains the largest concentration of OEM plants in Europe and is home to 40 automobile assembly and engine production sites with a capacity of over one third of total automobile production in Europe. German manufacturers are continuously expanding their foreign production capacity: in 2017, German automotive manufacturers produced more than 16 million cars, with 10.8 million (+7%) manufactured at sites outside Germany. Today, one in every five cars worldwide carries a German brand and 16 of the world’s top 100 automotive suppliers are German companies.
In 2017, German automotive manufacturers produced a total of 16,475,676 million passenger vehicles (+4.1%) globally. Domestic production stands at 5,645,584 million passenger vehicles (-1.8%), of which around 77.5% were ultimately destined for international markets. The most important foreign markets for German OEMs in terms of manufacturing capacity for passenger vehicles are China (2017: 4.9 million passenger vehicles), Europe (3.6 million), and NAFTA-region (1.4 million).
For 2017, German authorities reported 3,441,262 new passenger vehicle resgistration. The share by fuel type is as follows: Gasoline= 1,986,488 (57.7% market share); Diesel=1,336,776 (38.8%); LPG=4,400 (0.1%); CNG=3,723 (0.1%); BEVs=25,056 (0.7%); Hybrids=84,675 (2.5%). The majority of new vehicles were registered by corporate users (fleets) – only 35% of new vehicles were registerd by private vehicle owners. Noteworthy is the decline in new Diesel registrations, which decreased by 15.5% compared to 2016. The main cause being uncertainty regarding potential bans of Diesel vehicles in several major cities across Germany as a result of strict enforcement of EU environmental legislation and looming court decisions across the country respectively.
Felix Happe
U.S. Consulate Munich, Germany
GERMANY
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