Production and registration of new cars rose again gently Germany, but is still lagging behind pre-Covid figures, says automotive association VDA in its statistics for the first half of 2023.
In June, the production level at German car plants was higher on-year for the 14th month in a row. Last month, 389,900 passenger cars rolled off production lines, 31% more than in June 2022, Kallanish hears from VDA.
In the first half of the year, a total of just over 2.2 million passenger cars were produced. This corresponds to an increase of 32% compared to the same period last year. Despite the positive trend of recent months, production remains significantly below the pre-crisis level, at 10% fewer vehicles than in the first half of 2019.
VDA president Hildegard Müller warns that the upward trend could expire going forward. “Passenger car production in Germany increased significantly in the first half, primarily due to the efforts to ease tensions in supply chains,” she says. “Looking at the overall economic situation and at new orders, we expect that the high growth rates will weaken soon, and that the high order backlog will be slowly reduced.”
Overall, new orders dropped by 9% from H1 2022, with mainly domestic orders weakening. Domestic orders in the first six months fell by 27% year-on-year. Foreign orders were down 5%.
Christian Koehl Germany
