Catch up with the electric car can not change the overall situation.

This year's outbreak has made many unthinkable things come true.

In April, for example, India's car market recorded its first monthly sales of zero, while Italy, the U.K. and Spain, among Europe's top five car markets, each saw sales of just over 4,000 vehicles for the month, the lowest in decades.

In June there was another surprise.

Sales of passenger cars in Germany fell 32.3% in June from a year earlier to 220,272 in June, according to the German Motor Vehicle authority (KBA).

While those sales and declines were the best since March, they were the lowest for the same period in 35 years, just above the 200,107 sold in 1985. It also knocked Germany out of the top spot in continental Europe for the second time in 30 years -- just shy of France's 233,814. The last time was in January 1990, when Germans were busy celebrating the end of separation and unification in their capital, Berlin.

Sales for the year as a whole may hit a 30-year low

This situation again, from the German side, a large part of the reason is the weakness of the car market after the epidemic. Meanwhile, the government's announcement of a forthcoming VAT cut in early June may have put some consumers in a wait-and-see mood until the July figures come out. In addition, the outbreak of COVID-19 in Several Meat processors in Germany in June may have had a negative impact.

And France is, in the government 8 billion euros (64.8 billion yuan) in view of the automobile industry stimulus policy, as well as automakers and dealers under a big discount, not only achieved positive growth for the first time this year, and the agency said the achievement also broke into the French monthly sales history before ten places, ranked eighth. It is precisely because of this high and low contrast that the French once again successfully counterattack.

Looking at the first half of the year, the consecutive decline in the first half of this year, the German auto market sales fell 34.5% year on year to 1,210,622 units, only slightly higher than the same period in 1975, 1,129,670 units.

Media argue that VAT on July 1, reduce 3% to 16%, after sales there will be more obvious rebound, but private thought given fuel car to enjoy derate, must achieve more than 41 miles per gallon, basic hundred kilometer fuel consumption 5.75 litres, a lot of fuel consumption of the larger models, especially in the many popular SUV should can't meet the requirements, so you can't expect it to have a very large role on the market.

Even if it catches up again in the second half of this year, full-year sales will not be too high, up from 1.211 million in the first half. As Reinhard Zirpel, President of the German International Automobile Manufacturers association (VDIK), puts it, the coVID-19 outbreak has led to a historically rare slump in the German car market, and the losses in the new-car market could be far greater than in previous financial crises.

It also expects German passenger car sales in the second half to be roughly in line with the long-term average of 1.6m units, and for the full year to be about 2.8m units, the lowest since reunification 30 years ago.

Sales of electric cars doubled in the first half of the year

Although the German passenger car market as a whole is not doing well, there are still some segments of the market that are doing well, such as RVS and electric cars.

Sales rose 29.1% in May and 62.2% in June, the only German car segment to show positive growth during the period. In the first half of this year, the segment fell 55.2 per cent only in April, and the rest of the months were positive year on year.

According to KBA data, the German RV market has seen growth in the past decade, not just this year, but also in 2015 to 2019, with growth of more than 10%, far outperforming the overall car market.

This year, the rV market has seen adverse growth, mainly due to a surge in demand for rV rentals in Europe, where long-distance travel is not possible due to the outbreak. Coupled with the approach of summer, Europe's peak tourist season, rV rental companies are buying new cars in bulk after the closure in May.

However, compared with the electric car market, the rV market growth momentum is still some small paltry.

According to VDIK, the total sales volume of the country's electric vehicle market (including pure electricity, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel) reached 93,980 units in the first six months of this year, up 97.5% year on year. Monthly growth was 138.6%, 141.7%, 104.4%, 32.2%, 56.5% and 118.9%, respectively. Sales in the remaining four months, with the exception of April and May, when the epidemic hit hard, were at least twice as high as in the same period last year. Of those, 18,896 units were sold in June, the second-highest month so far for electric cars in Germany, after 19,775 in March.

That is largely because in early June the German government announced a 50% increase in electric-car subsidies. And with the VAT cut in the second half of the year, sales of electric cars should hit a new high.

Such growth will continue to depend for a long time on plug-in hybrids rather than pure electricity. Although plug-in hybrids will cost about 2,000 euros less than pure electric cars under the electric-vehicle subsidy policy, many consumers will still prefer plug-in hybrids because of the higher cost of batteries, which will give them a significantly lower price.

Indeed, judging from the June data, the current pure electric market looks more like a lame duck than a lame one. In June, the plug-in hybrid ratio rose 274.4 percent to 10,749 units, the first time its monthly sales exceeded 10,000 units, while pure electricity rose 41.0 percent to 8,119 units, lagging both sales and growth. In fact, throughout the first half of the year, the total sales volume of the two is only more than 5,000 units apart. Only with the advantage of a low base in the same period, can the growth be stronger.

In the second half of the year, with the implementation of the reduced value-added tax, gasoline vehicles will also enjoy the benefits of the government's economic stimulus policies. Driven by electric vehicles and gasoline vehicles, the German auto market will continue to recover. But as mentioned above, no matter how hard you struggle, you can't change the final fate of this year's sharp decline.