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In Germany, almost no one buys cars new except for really wealthy people, car aficionados, or corporations. Most people buy used cars. That is also a reason why the German car makers have such a high end portfolio that doesn't make sense just for the regular Joe...


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Who are they buying used cars from, if “almost no one” do buy new cars? I think Germany is a net exporter of used cars.

Edit: I found figures for 2013, with 7.1 million used cars sold. The number of new passenger cars sold was 3.0 million. What I find surprising is that most new cars are indeed bought by businesses (I can find figures for 2013, but last year private cars represented 37% of new registrations). So around 1 in 7 private car sales are new cars. I don’t know if it qualifies as “almost no one”, but it’s lower than I expected.


Company cars, for example.

Cars move down the economic ladder as they get sold. The rich by new, the middle buys slightly used, the bottom buys very used.

If a car costs a lot to begin with it will cycle through more owners before being exported or scrapped. It's perfectly possible to have fewer new cars sold and have the same or larger used car market. Those new cars just have to be expensive enough that they cycle through many owners.


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