According to the VDA (German Association of the Automotive Industry) (
www.vda.de), the switch to the new Worldwide Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) continued to affect the German passenger-car market in October, with the 252,600 new registrations being 7% below last year’s level.
In the first 10 months of 2018, just over 2.9 million new passenger cars were registered in Germany — a rise of 1% on the fist 10 months of 2017.
October’s orders from Germany were 8% down on last year’s level, with domestic orders in the first 10 months of 2018 down 2%.
Export orders recorded a fall of 13% in October, while those for the first 10 months of 2018 narrowly failed to equal last year’s figure (they were down 1%).
The distortions due to WLTP were also felt in passenger-car production, with a total of 442,500 units built; and while this represents a 3% increase compared with October 2017, it should be remembered that October had two more working days this year.
In the first 10 months of 2018, around 4.4 million new passenger cars have rolled off the production lines (down 7% on the first 10 months of 2017).
Given the developments in passenger-car production in the wake of the switch to WLTP, the VDA expects domestic car production during 2018 as a whole to come to nearly 5.3 million units (down 7% on 2017) and exports to reach 4.1 million units (down 6% on 2017).