German car production keeps lagging in first half

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