BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - In order to comply with the CO2 limits for new car fleets in the EU, the automotive industry believes that there needs to be a significant ramp-up of electric cars this year. Sales of pure battery-powered vehicles alone would have to increase by around 75 percent compared to last year, said Manuel Kallweit, chief economist of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), in Berlin. That would correspond to around 666,000 units.
If other electric drives such as plug-in hybrids are included, growth would have to be around 53 percent higher than in the previous year. Starting this year, carmakers face heavy fines under current EU legislation due to stricter CO2 fleet limits.
Overall, the VDA expects around 2.8 million new cars to be sold in Germany in 2025. This would be roughly the same as last year and still around a quarter less than in the pre-crisis year of 2019.