Electric Vehicles and Plug-ins see a 60% surge in vehicles on the road in Germany in the last year, but do stay in the parc?

Do the Electrical vehicles stay?

In some countries, there has been a problem of keeping vehicles in country, after incentives have been granted. In this case, incentive support does not drive the improvement of local emissions and clean air as much as planned.

We looked at the last 5 years of registrations and checked how many of those still are on the German road, split by fuel type.

Slightly concerning is here that for both electric vehicles (82%) and Plug-in vehicles (75/%) the rate is below the average (91%) and well below petrol (96%). Given diesel gate, we could expect that there would be an exodus of diesel vehicles, but for electrified transport we would assume they stay.

The reason for this in specifically is the KIA Soul EV, of which only 13% have remained. Also, of the BMW i3 and Volkswagen Golf EV just 80 remained. The EV with the most vehicles in operations is the Renault Zoe, and there the drop of rate is 0. Meaning that there are as much vehicles in the country, as have been registered the last years.

The Plug-ins have a lower dispersion between the different models, with a retention rate that lies usually between 70% and 80%.

Reasons why these vehicles do not remain on German soil might be speculation, but we could provide following plausible arguments:

• No 2^nd hand demand in Germany for electrified transport (electric range of older models?)
• Cars are registered in Germany, but effectively sold in other countries.
• Incentives in other countries on second hand EV and Plug-ins

All in all, it might be wise for the government to put in place a policy that keeps low emission vehicles in country, so the environmental gain stays where it is supposed to be.