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For Germany's major car companies, the year 2021 began as the old one went almost continuously: in crisis mode.

Production is stalling at Mercedes in Rastatt, as is Volkswagen at the main plant in Wolfsburg and in Emden.

The reason for this are delivery bottlenecks for computer chips.

The manufacturers in Asia simply misjudged the demand, according to the industry.

That sounds plausible, after all, the buyers and logisticians of the companies were constantly busy last year to maintain the flow of materials.

A bottleneck like the one that has now occurred could have hit the factories in 2020.

In order to reduce their losses, VW and Mercedes-Benz are temporarily putting the affected employees on short-time work.

There is still little in sight of the hoped-for recovery in the German key industry after the economic slump in the pandemic year.

All manufacturers are cheering about the rapidly growing number of electric cars and hybrids that they were able to sell last year.

But the share of these vehicles in total sales is still so small that it is still a long way from compensating for the losses in gasoline and diesel vehicles.

Source: WORLD infographic

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At least there was a sign of hope in December: The number of new registrations in Germany rose to more than 312,000 cars, according to the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), an increase of 9.9 percent compared to the previous year.

But that could also have been a sales effect.

“Many private customers bought a car at the end of the year in order to benefit from the VAT cut.

New private registrations increased by 45 percent in December - almost five times as strong as the overall market, ”said Reinhard Zirpel, President of the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, about the figures.

He expects a difficult start to the year because car dealerships are still closed and the December figures also include early registrations.

For the entire industry, the ray of hope of the German December figures is conceivably smaller.

How hard the consequences of the corona pandemic hit the car manufacturers in this country can be seen from the sales figures for 2020.

The VW Group, whose worldwide vehicle sales fell from almost eleven million in 2019 to just 9.3 million, has suffered particularly.

The Covid-19 effects are clearly reflected in the Group's brand portfolio.

The Spanish subsidiary Seat, which was able to sell a quarter fewer cars than in the year before Corona, suffered the sharpest drop in sales among the car brands.

Spain is the country most affected by the pandemic in Europe.

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Only the sales of the truck subsidiary Scania fell even more clearly within the group, namely by 27.5 percent.

This shows the clear reluctance of companies to make pending investments.

Logistics companies, which of course also have to struggle with the economic consequences of the effects of Covid-19, were obviously reluctant to purchase new trucks.

This also applies to smaller vans: at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, sales have fallen by more than 24 percent.

In contrast, the premium brand Audi has come through the pandemic year comparatively stable.

Thanks to the strong sales figures in China, the decline in sales is only 8.3 percent below the previous year.

The sports car subsidiary Porsche has done best by far, which despite Corona only sold 3.1 percent fewer vehicles worldwide, namely 272,000.

Luxury runs at BMW

The figures show that the luxury market was significantly more resistant than the large mass market in the crisis year.

Wealthy people were happy to buy a new car despite Corona.

Perhaps also because there were fewer other ways to spend your money with joy.

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BMW was able to benefit from this trend.

The Munich-based manufacturer recorded a drop of 7.2 percent in its sales and ended up with total sales of just over two million vehicles.

In a comparison of the three groups, this is the least bad annual result.

“The strong performance of the models in the upper luxury segment made a significant contribution to this, thanks to the 7 and 8 series as well as the BMW X7, which increased by 12.4 percent compared to the previous year with a total of 115,420 units,” says BMW.

Compared to 2018, sales of luxury cars have increased by 70 percent.

From the shareholders' point of view, this is gratifying, because you can earn significantly more money with expensive luxury cars than with cheaper cars, which have to generate their returns through the highest possible sales volume.

What the economic balance sheet of the corporations looks like after the pandemic year will only become apparent in the coming month, when the income statements for the fourth quarter are presented.

It is clear that the companies were able to cushion a large part of the losses by sending their employees on short-time work.

In addition, the domestic discounts on new vehicles had decreased significantly in the past few months.

The auto expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer sees this as a sign that companies pay more attention to the profit contribution of the individual sales.

Daimler relies on the new S-Class

Daimler also got through the crisis year relatively lightly.

Overall, the sales figures of the Mercedes-Benz brand fell by 7.5 percent, with the entire passenger car division slumping by 10.3 percent to 2.2 million vehicles sold worldwide.

Even before the pandemic, the Group's management board had decided to significantly strengthen the luxury segment and to pay more attention to the return on smaller models.

"We are optimistic about the year 2021," said CEO Ola Källenius in an interview with journalists last week.

There was a remarkable recovery in the second half of 2020 - after the market almost completely collapsed at times in the first lockdown.

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His colleague on the board, Britta Seeger, who is responsible for sales, said about the presentation of the figures: "The new S-Class is particularly enthusiastic and fascinating, which is already shown by the high number of over 40,000 orders worldwide."

Mercedes-Benz launched the car in September.

Overall, sales of the S-Class fell by 17.2 percent in the year of the model changeover.

Nevertheless, with around 60,000 units, the car is the best-selling luxury sedan in the world.

The best-selling Mercedes-Benz model last year was the GLC with around 320,000 vehicles sold.

This means that the small Benz SUV even beats the leading car in Europe from mass manufacturer Volkswagen, the Golf.

For the flagship of the Wolfsburg-based company, the year 2020 was accompanied by problems, the introduction of the eighth generation had to be postponed due to software errors, even now VW has to call back tens of thousands of cars to install updates.

Nevertheless, the Golf remains the best-selling car in Europe and Germany, with 312,000 vehicles delivered, 136,000 of them in the home market.

Worldwide, the Tiguan is ahead in the VW sales statistics.

E-cars: small sales, strong growth

Pure electric cars are still a long way from achieving such values.

The best-selling battery vehicle in Germany last year was the Renault Zoe with just over 30,000 units.

This is followed in the KBA statistics by the Tesla Model 3 with 15,200 and Volkswagen's ID.3, which has only been available since September, with 14,500 vehicles sold.

The fact that electric cars are the biggest issue in the industry has a lot to do with the crisis.

While the numbers have plummeted in practically all areas, sales of vehicles with electric motors are growing at an enormous rate - starting from a very low level.

Manufacturers use this to convey positive messages and to give themselves an environmentally friendly paint.

In fact, almost only hybrid vehicles are behind the electric growth rates at Daimler.

So far, the group only has the Mercedes EQC, the EQV and the Elektro-Smart on the market.

The mini brand is currently being restarted in a joint venture with the Chinese Geely group.

In 2020, Smart sold 27,000 fully electric cars.

Mercedes was able to sell around 20,000 units of the newly introduced EQC worldwide.

Source: WORLD infographic

In the VW Group, the share of battery-only vehicles in total deliveries in 2020 was just under 2.5 percent.

So even the world's largest car manufacturer still has a long way to go when it comes to electrification.

Compared to its competitor Tesla, VW has not even sold half as many electric cars worldwide.

Last year Elon Musk was able to just achieve the goal he had set himself of 500,000 vehicles sold.

Volkswagen should catch up a lot this year.

At Tesla, the growth rate was 74 percent compared to the previous year.

At VW it was 214 percent, based on pure battery cars such as the ID.3 and the Audi E-Tron.

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For the new year, VW and Daimler in particular are planning a major electric offensive.

"We have increased our electric market share - and in 2021 we will bring ten e-models from five brands onto the market," writes VW CEO Herbert Diess about the sales figures on LinkedIn.

Wolfsburg is expecting a lot from the small ID.4 SUV in particular.

It is to become the new “world car” of the group.

New models from Mercedes and BMW for 2021

Mercedes-Benz has announced four new fully electric models.

The EQS, a luxury electric sedan that is expected to beat the Tesla Model S in many fields, is eagerly awaited.

According to the company, the car should have a range of 700 kilometers on one battery charge.

It can also be optionally equipped with a huge 1.40 meter wide display that fills the entire front and adapts to the needs of the user with the help of artificial intelligence.

The share of electrified cars in Mercedes sales is expected to grow to 13 percent - albeit including hybrids.

The former German electric car pioneer BMW is lagging slightly behind in the race for the new models.

In addition to their now eight-year-old i3, the Bavarians are now selling a new SUV called the iX3, which was first introduced in China, and the e-Mini.

Production of the luxury car iX and i4 is set to start this year - an electric car with which BMW will also target the mass market.