In view of the lack of materials, corona lockdowns and rising costs, German car manufacturers are curbing their sales expectations worldwide.
The general conditions had clouded over significantly since the beginning of the year, the Association of the Automotive Industry announced on Monday.
"Russia's ongoing, terrible war of aggression against Ukraine, the tough corona lockdowns in China and the shortages of semiconductors, other preliminary products and raw materials are putting a hitherto unknown and unforeseeable strain on the supply chains," explained Hildegard Müller, head of the association.
For the world market, the association is now assuming a drop in sales volume of one percent to 70.2 million passenger cars this year.
So far, slight growth had been expected.
The market volume of the pre-Corona year 2019 is thus 13 percent below.
The VDA lowered the growth forecast for the German car market to three percent from the previous five percent to 2.7 million vehicles and assumes stagnation at 11.8 million units for Europe.
The association had previously forecast growth of three percent here.
The world's largest car market, China, will shrink by two percent to 20.7 million vehicles this year due to the corona lockdowns, the VDA said.
For the USA, the car lobby expects a drop of one percent to 14.7 million vehicles.
Previously, growth of two percent had been expected.