With almost 333,000 new passenger cars registered in July 2019, the total number of new registrations for this month was higher than in any other July since 2009, when a scrappage scheme heavily boosted the German market. Compared to the same month last year, new registrations increased by + 4.7% overall. This doesn’t sound very impressive but is remarkable nevertheless as the introduction of the WLTP emission standard in Q3/2018 resulted in a significant amount of early car purchases and thus a very high comparative level.
The introduction of the next WLTP stage is not very far ahead, but a similar pull-forward effect as seen in 2018 is not (yet) visible. At least not in the special channels (rental companies, dealerships and car manufacturers) whose volume remained very stable (+ 0.2%). Looking on the significant growth rate of 14.9%, however, it is conceivable that some fleet managers have already made additional purchases in order to avoid possible delivery bottlenecks in the coming autumn. In contrast, new private car registrations climbed only moderately by +2.6% in July.
Hyundai and Kia with significant growth rates
Behind the clear market leader Volkswagen, Audi were 2nd while Mercedes took 3rd from BMW in True Fleets‘ July ranking thanks to an increase of 23.0%. Ford and Opel in 5th and 6th place achieved even higher growth rates of 30.1% and 108.8% respectively. Behind the Volkswagen Group brands of Skoda and SEAT, Renault and Volvo completed the top 10. A bit further down the brand ranking Hyundai (12th, + 39.9%) and Kia (14th, + 55.0%) both gained three positions.
Whithin Hyundai the models I30, I10 and Kona performed very well. At Kia the Compact Car Ceed contributed most to the very positive result in July. The Ceed missed the volume of its sister model Hyundai I30 by only 14 registrations. approvals for its sister model Hyundai I30 and thus its entry into the top 10 compact class models in the fleet market.
The performance of the Mercedes C-Class is undoubtedly worth to be mentioned as well as it scored the highest volume growth by absolute figures of all models and ranked 3rd in the Middle Class segment behind the VW Passat and Audi A4.
Electric vehicles with a strong upward trend
What about fuel types? Compared to July 2018 the diesel share dropped by 1.7 percentage points to 56.0% while the petrol share decreased moderately (- 0.3 percentage points) to 38.2%. There was a clear upward trend for alternative fueltypes with a new all-time high of 5.8%! While hybrids and plug-in hybrids were certainly in good shape but not quite on a record level, the share of full electric vehicles was nearly at 3.0% – a new best value. The new Audi e-tron already ranked third behind the Volkswagen Golf and BMW i3, these were followed by Renault Zoe and the second best newcomer, Tesla’s Model 3.
