Press release No. N 009 of 24 February 2022
- Lack of chips and delivery bottlenecks reduced car exports: +10% on 2020; -8% on 2019
- Foreign trade in electric cars increased strongly: exports +78%, imports +83% on 2020
- Turnover in the automotive industry below pre-crisis level in 2021
WIESBADEN – The lack of chips and other delivery bottlenecks affected the German automotive industry in 2021 – and foreign trade. Although German car exports were up in 2021 on a year earlier, they did not reach the pre-crisis level of 2019. Germany exported passenger cars to the value of 117.6 billion euros in 2021 according to provisional data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). This was an increase of 9.9% on 2020, the year which was characterised by severe Covid-related restrictions. Compared with 2019, there was a decline of 8.2%. The People's Republic of China was the most important customer of the German automotive industry in 2021. Passenger cars to the value of 16.7 billion euros were exported to China (+14.0% compared with 2020). Other important destinations of car exports from Germany were the United States (15.9 billion euros; +18.1%) and the United Kingdom (9.4 billion euros; -17.0%).
