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Berlin (dpa) - 169,754 cars were newly registered in Germany in the first month of the new year.
That was around 31 percent less than in January of the previous year, as the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA) announced.
On the one hand, the car dealerships are still closed in the Corona crisis, according to the Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA).
In addition, at the turn of the year the half-year sales tax cut, with which the federal government wanted to set purchase incentives, expired.
Many consumers would have bought a new car at a reduced price in December.
These buyers were then missing in January.
In contrast, the trend towards electric cars remained unbroken.
According to KBA, 16,315 new vehicles with electric drives were registered in January.
That was almost 118 percent more than in January of the previous year.
Thus, almost every tenth new registration was an electric vehicle.
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The German car market collapsed by around 19 percent in the first year of the Corona crisis.
VDA President Hildgard Müller expects an improvement in 2021, especially from the second half of the year.
The market is expected to grow by 8 percent with around 3.15 million new registrations.
However, such figures would be a long way from pre-crisis levels.
In 2019 there were a strong 3.6 million new registrations.
In 2020, however, there were only 2.9 million.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210203-99-285116 / 2
Communication KBA