Germany passes landmark of 1 million EVs, growing with 68%

At the end of 2022, Germany’s national car fleet counted more than one million EVs. A meaningful milestone, but it’s still a far stretch to the 15 million full-electric vehicles that Germany eyes for 2030. In one year time, the German zero-emission fleet grew by 68%, so progress is encouraging.

The KBA, or Kraftfahrt Bundesambt, has released its final figures for 2022. With 1 013 009 electric vehicles registered, it is clear the country has passed a symbolical point. The rise was helped by government incentives for electrified vehicles, which were scrapped as of the 1^st of January 2023 for plug-in hybrids and adapted downward for battery-powered vehicles. The statistics take into account deregistrations from accidents and foreign sales.

For the very first time

In a final rush, the month of December witnessed a spike in registrations. With the last phase of a tax credit in its most generous form supporting adoption, electrified vehicles grew by a staggering 114%. This includes plug-in hybrid cars, which miss out on subsidies as of this year. However, it was the first time in the history of registrations that more than half of the vehicles registered were electrified (55%).

As such, Germany witnessed a similar end-of-year flash as Norway, with a hard landing in January. The market share of electrified vehicles in the first month of the year was no more than 15,1%, a downfall of 6,5% compared to the same month the year before. Benchmarked against December 2022, the slump is a whopping 40,3%.

Insufficient charging infrastructure

According to the German registration body, the national fleet more or less stabilized with a marginal growth of 0,2 percentage points to 48,8 million vehicles. The share of diesel declined by 3 percentage points, while the presence of gasoline-powered vehicles lost a little more than 1 percentage point. EVs account for roughly two percent of today’s car fleet in Germany.

As 2030 is still seven years away, the exponential growth of EV adoption might bring the government’s goal of 15 million vehicles within reach. Though, not everyone is optimistic. Ferdinand Düdenhofer from the Center Automotive Research (CAR) in Duesenberg claims that plans to roll out charging infrastructure are insufficient to meet that target.