New data from HUK: Private buyers are switching to electric cars less often

Battery-electric cars have only reached a vanishingly small proportion of private car buyers in Germany. This is according to data from the Coburg-based insurance company HUK, which claims a 25 percent market share in the German private car insurance market but does not insure business car fleets or company cars. Among private car buyers, HUK is registering a declining propensity to switch from combustion engines to electric drive. HUK recorded such a switch among 3.9 percent of policyholders in the fourth quarter of 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the switch rate was 6.9 percent, and in the fourth quarter of 2023, it was still 6.2 percent. In the first quarter of this year, it was 4.1 percent.

According to the insurance company, the share of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) in total new registrations in Germany does not provide a complete picture of the ramp-up of electromobility. The Federal Motor Transport Authority, for example, recorded a BEV share of 16.8 percent for March 2025 and a BEV share of 18.8 percent for April 2025 – each with a significant increase in the share of purely electric vehicles compared to the previous year.

However, these figures are dominated by the market for commercial registrations, fleet operators, and company cars. According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority, these account for two-thirds of new registrations, and a disproportionate number of all-electric cars are registered by these commercial buyers.

However, the significant proportion of commercial registrations among new cars does not yet provide any information about the development of the share of electric cars in the total car fleet, commented Klaus-Jürgen Heitmann, spokesperson for the board of HUK-Coburg. Commercial owners account for only 10 percent of the total car fleet in Germany, compared to 90 percent of private car owners.

"Electric cars are barely making any inroads in the crucial private car market, with around 45 million cars," explains Heitmann. In HUK's insurance portfolio, which focuses exclusively on private car owners, only three percent of all cars currently have battery-electric drives.

While the share of BEVs in the car fleet is still relatively high in the automotive-industry-dominated federal states of Bavaria (3.6 percent), Lower Saxony, and Baden-Württemberg (3.4 percent each), according to HUK statistics, the rate in Berlin is only 2.5 percent. The lowest share of electric cars in the private car fleet is recorded in Bremen, Thuringia, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (1.8 percent each), as well as in Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony (1.6 percent each). Lower Saxony and Bavaria saw the highest number of switchers from combustion engines to BEVs in the first quarter of 2025 (4.7 percent each), while Bremen (2.4 percent) and Saxony (2.3 percent) recorded the lowest share.

The results of the surveys commissioned by HUK on private car buyers' attitudes toward electric cars confirm a rather waning enthusiasm for electric drive systems. In this year's "HUK E-Barometer," for which Yougov surveyed more than 4,200 people aged 16 and over, a total of 42 percent of respondents in the first quarter of 2025 stated that they generally rated electric cars as very good or good. Two years ago, 46 ​​percent of respondents expressed this level of approval. Electric cars were rated as less positive or "not good at all" by 51 percent of respondents in the first quarter of 2025, compared to 47 percent two years earlier.

Only 15 percent of respondents in the first quarter of 2025 stated that they would only consider purchasing a purely battery-electric vehicle in the future (2024: 19 percent). Forty-seven percent responded that they did not want to limit car purchases to electric drive systems (2024: 42 percent). 31 percent of respondents stated that they would only buy electric cars once the law would allow only vehicles with this drive system.

At least the many new electric cars registered by commercial buyers have now also arrived on the used car market. HUK reports that among private car users, 61 percent of those switching from combustion engines to electric vehicles are now buying used cars, while only 39 percent are buying new cars. Until recently, this switch occurred almost exclusively through the purchase of new cars.

Only if car buyers replace their combustion engine cars with electric ones can this help the climate, emphasizes HUK CEO Heitmann. Additional electric cars purchased as second cars or company vehicles have no effect. His conclusion is: "The subsidy for electric cars should focus on the proven switch from combustion engines to electric motors – and not just on new registrations." Such subsidies for the switch should then also include used cars.