For the main German industry, the automobile, no fewer cars are expected to be produced in 2021 than 45 years ago. But that’s exactly what happened thanks to Covid-19, the lack of chips and wiring, to which was added a lower interest in acquiring new cars, by customers. This explains why the Germans did not exceed 3,096,165 units in 2021, value below the 3,546,900 vehicles produced in 1976.
To get a concrete idea of the magnitude of the fall in the production of new cars of the German machine, it is enough to remember that The Germans have not produced less than 5 million vehicles since 1998 (except in 2009, when the value dropped to 4,964,523), even reaching 5,871,918 in 2011, an absolute record, not much higher than the 5,746,138 achieved in 2016, the 5,709,139 in 2007 or the 5,708.138 from 2015.
to produce almost half of the vehicles used in the last 24 yearsGerman officials are obviously nervous about the effect this reduction has had on their respective groups’ turnover, as well as the profits they record, which are then shared by shareholders. And, as if this were not enough, these produced vehicles are also a source of taxes, which reinforces the “health” of the German tax authorities, who should not be particularly pleased to witness this reduction in production and turnover figures.
The German press publishes the manufacturing figures for vehicles registered between 1957 and 2021, having started from 1,040,188 units in 1957, to later exceed two million in 1962 (more precisely 2,109,166), three million in 1969 (3,312. 539) and four million in 1985 (4,166,686). But despite the fact that the industry association, VDA, points much of the blame for the pandemic and the difficulties of suppliers, the reality is that the crisis started long before. After registering between 5.6 and 5.7 million models produced between 2014 and 2017, Germany began to decline, with sales of 5.1 million in 2018, 4.6 million in 2019, 3.5 million in 2020 and, finally, less than 3.1 million vehicles manufactured in 2021.
meanwhile the world global vehicle production continues to grow, which jumped from 65.8 million manufactured in 2020 to 67 million in 2021. The largest markets are China, with 21 million units produced, followed by the US (8.8 million) and Japan (6.6 million ). Among Europeans and after the 3.1 million from Germany, there are 1.6 million from Spain, 0.91 million from France and 0.85 million from the United Kingdom, all of them down compared to the previous year.
Source: Observadora
