In its December 2021 coalition agreement, the German government set the goal of achieving a parc of 15 million plug-in vehicles, i.e. BEVs and PHEVs, by 2030. In an initial assessment in November 2021, Dataforce doubted that this target could be achieved under the given conditions.

A more detailed analysis based on Dataforce’s parc and new registration forecasts confirms these doubts. The parc forecast is only 11.1 million EVs by 2030. In terms of the total parc, this corresponds to around 23% of German passenger cars to be Plug-In cars.  Even if we sum up all new EV registrations until 2030 this will not be enough to reach the 15 million goal.

More than 40% of newly registered EVs leave the parc within three years

However, cars also get deregistered, and the data shows that deregistrations of EVs are significantly higher than of the total parc. From 3,44 million cars that were registered in 2018, 3,11 million were left at the end of 2021. In relative terms, after three years 90.6% have remained on German roads, while 9.4% have been exported or deregistered for other reasons.

However, numbers drastically change for Plug-In cars. Out of just under 69,000 new registrations from 2018, only 40,000 were still in the parc. The loss rate of 40.4% is therefore extremely high.

Reduced purchase grants from 2023

New car purchase premiums reduce new car prices by several thousand Euros and used cars can only be sold at significant discounts in Germany. Thus, many used cars are getting sold into countries with higher residual values for EVs.

With the subsidy cuts planned from 2023, we have taken lower deregistration rates into account in the forecast. However, the cut will also slow the ramp-up in new registrations and fewer new vehicles will be added to the stock.

In order to ultimately reach 15 million plug-in vehicles in stock by 2030, further measures are therefore needed to increase new registrations but also to ensure that the passenger cars remain in Germany.