Picture Alliance/Getty Images
The electric car market is at the start of a months-long price war, reports the “Handelsblatt”.
Both Chinese and Western manufacturers are advertising drastic discounts after the e-car bonus has been abolished.
The market is also a “cauldron” thanks to the recession and reduced purchasing power, an expert told the newspaper. Demand is “close to zero”.
The electric car market is in the early stages of a price war. At least that’s what the President of the Baden-Württemberg Motor Vehicle Industry Association, Michael Ziegler, explained. the “Handelsblatt”. Accordingly, both Chinese manufacturers and Western producers are advertising with sometimes drastic discounts, as the newspaper reports.
Manufacturers such as Great Wall Motor (GWM) and BYD, for example, offer discounts of up to 19,000 euros, while others offer charging vouchers worth thousands of euros. The reason for this is the previously unsuccessful attempts to gain a foothold in the European market. The market share is 3.1 percent.
Western manufacturers also offer discounts of up to 41 percent – VW and Tesla also offer discounts. Thanks to the loss of state subsidies for electric cars and the recession, Germany is facing a month-long discount battle, according to the “Handelsblatt”.
Read too
Ford is losing $1.5 billion because too few customers are buying electric cars – now they are rethinking
Demand for electric cars is “close to zero”
Ziegler describes the electric car market as a “cauldron”. It is currently being re-sorted – because the order situation has been getting worse for years. “Demand is currently barely existent,” the “Handelsblatt” quoted him as saying. “It’s going to zero.” The industry can’t actually afford the price war, says Constantin M. Gall, mobility expert at EY. After the environmental bonus was abolished, the industry would be faced with a “heap of shambles,” he explained to the “Handelsblatt”.
At the same time, the prices of new cars are at record levels. According to the Deutsche Automobil Treuhand (DAT), new cars cost an average of 44,630 euros – more than ever before. In purely mathematical terms, this corresponds to around 80 percent of the annual income. For decades the value was 60 percent.
sb