FLENSBURG (dpa-AFX) - Pure electric cars are becoming increasingly popular in Germany, but gasoline-powered vehicles are defending their share of total car sales in the Federal Republic. Just over 220,000 pure electric cars were newly registered in the first half of the year - 31.7 percent more than in the same period last year, the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) reported on Wednesday. Their share of all new car registrations is around 16 percent - up from 13.5 percent in the same period last year.

According to the KBA, a total of just over 1.4 million new cars were registered in Germany from the beginning of January to the end of June. This is an increase of 12.8 percent compared to the first six months of 2022.

"The German passenger car market recovered noticeably in the first half of the year. As expected, new registrations have developed positively and are mainly driven by the slow reduction of the order backlog," said Reinhard Zirpel, President of the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (VDIK). However, he stressed that the market volume of the pre-Corona era is still far away: "In the first half of the year, new registrations remained 16 percent below the average of the ten years before the start of the Corona crisis."

The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) gave a similar assessment of the situation. According to the VDA, there was a significant increase of 32 percent in the number of cars built in Germany in the first half of the year (a good 2.2 million) - but here, too, the pre-Corona level had not yet been reached again. "Looking at the overall economic situation and the development of incoming orders, it is to be expected that the high growth rates are likely to weaken soon," association president Hildegard Müller told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

The big losers in recent months have been plug-in hybrids. Since the turn of the year, there is no longer a requirement for these models.

- Accordingly, they are hardly bought anymore. Their share of newly

registered cars in the past six months was less than six percent. While almost 140,000 plug-in hybrids were newly registered in the first half of 2022, the figure for the current year was just under 80,000.

The switch from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is one of the key components of the desired traffic turnaround. After the turn of the year, however, e-car sales initially slumped after government demands were lowered. In the meantime, however, sales and new registration figures for battery-only vehicles have recovered strongly. "Within the first six months, this drive type showed an increase of plus 31.7 percent compared to the same period last year; no drive type achieved more in the same period," the KBA said.

However, the increases in sales of electric vehicles have not caused the average CO2 emissions of newly registered vehicles to fall. According to the KBA, the average CO2 emissions of newly registered cars in the first half of 2023 is 121 grams per kilometer - slightly higher than in the first half of 2022, which had steadily declined from 2019 (157 grams per kilometer) to 2022 (109.6 grams per kilometer).

One reason for this could be the SUVs, which continue to be popular with car buyers and are regarded by critics as particularly harmful to the climate. This segment has been in the strongest demand for months; in the first half of the year, they accounted for around 30 percent of all new registrations. In June 2023, 31.6 percent more such cars were newly registered than in June 2022./nif/DP/he