Saving when buying a car: higher discounts expected at dealers
Car dealers come under renewed pressure in corona lockdown. Higher discounts also expected in hamburg.
Photo: sebastian kahnert / dpa
Market experts predict good savings opportunities for 2021. Dealers like pfohe and petschallies talk about interesting offers.
Hamburg. In the corona crisis Many people avoid buses and trains and take the train more often own car, to avoid contacts. On the other hand, many cars remain in the garage because employees sit at home in front of their computers and no longer commute to the office.
In addition, for many families the vacation is cancelled and with it the trip to the vacation home. Is your own car losing or gaining in attractiveness, especially since the pandemic is also causing many a discussion about climate-friendly transportation ousted – and how does that affect prices for new and used cars?
A sparchance has already been missed by car dealership customers. value-added tax has been increased again after the temporary reduction in 2020. Last fall, bargain hunters were able to buy a vehicle for 50.In the past, the lower tax alone could still save more than 1,000 euros on the purchase of a new car, but this incentive has recently been eliminated.
Car dealers: expert expects more luring offers
Nevertheless, dealers are likely to court customers this spring with new tempting offers. car expert ferdinand dudenhoffer expects "slightly higher" rebates in the year just started. Despite the corona crisis, manufacturers were reluctant to make concessions to customers in 2020. One consequence is low order backlogs.
"with the current lockdown and the old value-added tax, the situation will become even tougher for carmakers and dealers in the coming months," says dudenhoffer, director of the Center automotive research (CAR) in duisburg, explaining his assessment. "we are assuming that after the forced closures and in the spring, sales promotion programs will again increasingly come onto the market".
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Similar signals are coming from the car dealerships in hamburg. Although the political strategy in the area of the energy turnaround with necessary additional installations such as batteries and complex catalytic converters will also bring price increases in the market in 2021, says thomas reher from the sales management of hugo pfohe. But these would then be offset again by special promotions in the trade.
Reher mentions offers with zero percent interest as examples. "this will certainly not work indefinitely, but in the current year there will again be very interesting offers," adds the sales manager of the dealership with brands such as ford, BMW, mini, jaguar and land rover.
Delivery of new and used cars difficult due to corona
Car dealers are having a hard time of it anyway, because since 16. December, the businesses clustered around friedrich-ebert-damm and nedderfeld in hamburg have largely closed. Delivery of new and used cars already purchased is only partially possible during the lockdown.
In order to reduce inventory and utilize the plants to capacity, the manufacturer is likely to offer promotions with good terms, says sales manager steffen bosche of petschallies. The VW dealership, which has locations in the walddorfer district and in ahrensburg, says that fortunately at least service is running at almost normal capacity during the lockdown. "We serve the post office and many doctors," says service manager thomas kroning. "and these customers continue to rely on their vehicles".
Business in Germany was mixed for car dealers last year. Sales were boosted primarily by used cars, while some new cars became slow-moving items. Car buyers often searched in vain for particularly favorable conditions. The number of daily registrations in the fall just before the forced closures did not exactly reach record levels.
According to a study by the CAR institute, the proportion of own registrations was 26.5 percent of all registrations in october, a decline compared to the previous year. The cars with one-day registrations are usually pushed onto the market as demonstration or stock cars with significant price reductions of around 25 percent. But this "expensive way of improving optical market share seems to be becoming more and more of a discontinued model," says dudenhoffer.
Low-emission cars are currently in particularly high demand
Recently, sales of low-emission vehicles in particular, which were subsidized in view of the climate targets, have increased sharply. Many models, for example at VW, were even sold out due to the great interest and are only available with waiting times of more than a year.
Incentives again available for climate-friendly vehicles in 2021. At the auto summit in november, it was decided that the innovation premium for electric and hybrid cars would be extended until 2025. The federal government will provide further financial resources for this purpose. The so-called double subsidy for electric cars should also be possible again. That means you can combine the government’s environmental bonus with other incentives. the savings quickly reach the sum of 10.000 euro.
Home office: companies are downsizing their fleets
However, volkswagen dealers are convinced that demand for cars will not return to the high levels seen in the pre-crisis year of 2019. "a lot of people work in their home offices for longer periods of time, representatives don’t drive as much, conferences are cancelled," says dirk weddigen von knapp, chairman of the volkswagen and audi partner association, explaining his forecast. As a result, mileage decreased and companies downsized their fleets.
the climate debate is also limiting the number of new cars: "companies want to reduce their carbon footprint and are providing their employees with e-bikes more frequently," says weddigen von knapp, describing the trend that the 1,200 VW and audi dealers in his association are facing.
The dealers, who according to the association account for 90 percent of VW’s sales, also have to deal with a market that is strongly influenced by changes in society: on the one hand, there is a reluctance on the part of young people to buy cars, and on the other, traffic policy is making parking in metropolitan areas more expensive, making private cars unattractive for many city dwellers. The aim is to win customer loyalty with new services such as car washes, tire storage and a mobile repair service, says weddigen von knapp.
Dealers come under price pressure on car subscriptions
Just how tough the competition is and how high the demands on the companies are, was recently experienced by the VW and audi operations wichert and tiedtke, which ran into financial difficulties and had to give up. But even with new business models, dealers are quickly coming under price pressure. A study by the CAR Institute, for example, has shown that car subscriptions that cover the cost of the vehicle, including insurance and tax, at a fixed monthly price also include high discounts.
Examples are subscription models at ford, seat or toyota, which offer discounts of more than 20 percent. Dudenhoffer praises offers where the customer only pays the fuel costs in addition to the monthly rent: "short terms of six or 12 months further reduce the risk and you have a really cheap new car".