Passenger car production at German assembly lines is clearly not achieving the recovery projected earlier by the country’s automotive industry federation, VDA.
In January-June, 1.7 million passenger cars came out of German factories, 16% more than in the first half 2020, which was much hurt by production halts. The increase however does not mean a return to pre-pandemic levels, VDA says. However, it notes that in terms of new registrations – 1.4 million units in the first six months 2021 – the figure is 25% lower than it was in the first half of 2019.
While VDA does not go into details about factors throttling production, it cites the supply bottlenecks for semi-conductors as a main factor. This may be the main cause for the extreme turn of trend Kallanish observes for June. The month’s output was 19% below that of June 2020, whereas May still saw a year-on-year increase of 58%.
The federation has therefore adjusted its output forecast for the full year. While it originally predicted a y-o-y increase of 13% to 4 million units, it now expects an increase of 3% to 3.6m units.
New registrations in the first half rose by 15% to 1.7m units. VDA highlights the registration of e-cars, which in the month of June rose 243% to 64,760 units, so that now the mark of 1 million e-cars on German roads has been reached.
Christian Koehl Germany
