Auto industry: Buyers can expect discounts thanks to falling sales

Car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer expects increasing discounts for new car buyers in 2025.

The purchase prices of electric and combustion cars will continue to converge. Manufacturers are interested in more electric vehicle sales.

Nevertheless, a weak car year 2025 is expected. Sales were estimated at around 2.84 million new cars in Germany.

According to car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, new car buyers can count on increasing discounts again in 2025. The purchase prices of electric and burner cars will continue to converge. Because of the threat of EU fines, the manufacturer had great interest in selling more electric vehicles. Political impulses can be expected from the EU level, while in Germany no further government funding is initially expected due to the new elections and the subsequent formation of a government.

In general, the head of the private Center Automotive Research (CAR) expects another weak car year in 2025. Sales in Germany will amount to around 2.84 million new cars after an estimated 2.82 million in 2024. “The times in which in Germany “Up to 3.6 million cars were sold,” sums up Dudenhöffer. An important reason is the weak economic outlook.

Car manufacturers also entered the new year with the lowest order backlog in the past ten years, meaning they were more willing to make concessions in order to boost sales. According to the CAR study, there were also many daily registrations at the end of the year, which, with a delay in the year, were intended to push down the new prices as special offers.

Most recently, manufacturers raised some list prices and scaled back the openly advertised discount programs, particularly for combustion engines, in December. The 20 top models only had an average discount of 15.5 percent on the list price after 17.4 percent in November. There was an average discount of 12.1 percent for battery models in December (12.9 percent). An electric car was an average of 5,600 euros more expensive to purchase than a comparable combustion engine. The operating costs are not taken into account here.

dpa