Germany In August 2012: European Malaise Here To Stay

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Germany hasn’t seen the double digit sales losses of other EU countries, but it isn’t walking on water either. August sales in Germany were down 4.7 percent on 226,455 units, says the KBA. For the first eight months of the year, sales in Germany now are 0.6 percent below the same period of the prior year.

There are interesting winners: Smart (+22.4 percent), Audi (+19.4 percent) and Porsche (+8,2 percent)

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Sector 5 Sector 5 on Sep 06, 2012

    Looks like Hyundai & Kia are eating asian carp: Honda,Mitsu,Nissan & Suzuki. Volkswagen perhaps, until new Golf - or is it already playing in DE?. Toyota I cannot be sure it is clumped with Lexus. The Koreans seem unable to touch Subaru.

  • Marjanmm Marjanmm on Sep 07, 2012

    I didn't realize how few cars Ford sells in Germany, their numbers are close to what Skoda and Hyundai plus Kia sell.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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