DUISBURG (dpa-AFX) - Car buyers in Germany can hope for more discounts on new car purchases in the new year, according to a study. Manufacturers had ramped up production in the final quarter of 2022 while delivering a very large number of cars on order, the Duisburg-based Center Automotive Research (CAR) reported in its regular market study for December. The chip crisis, which had long limited production capacity, was a thing of the past, it said.

"This means that 2023 will be a car year with significantly better delivery times, greater production and therefore also greater competition and higher discounts," explains institute head Ferdinand Dudenhöffer. The carmakers would only be able to exploit their high capacities with discounts or price reductions. One example is the U.S. manufacturer Tesla, which in recent months has already increasingly pushed cars onto the market at favorable conditions as rental cars or via subscription providers.

In addition, Chinese manufacturers are pushing into Europe with high-end electric models, the institute reports. Unlike the Japanese and Koreans in the past, they are targeting the premium segment of German manufacturers in particular and are making particularly intensive use of the comparatively new instrument of car subscriptions. In addition to a monthly usage discount, this also includes insurance and maintenance services. Dudenhöffer therefore expects the number of registrations of Chinese models in Germany to double to 100,000 cars this year. Last year, a total of around 2.65 million new cars were registered in the Federal Republic./ceb/DP/stk