'Unprecedented' crisis: Car sales crash in Germany due to coronavirus

Car sales in Germany have collapsed amid the coronavirus epidemic, with the country registering its biggest drop in new registrations of passenger vehicles in three decades, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) said on Friday.

Many factories have stopped production due to the coronavirus outbreak. Numerous retailers have also shut down and demand has plummeted.

A total of 215,100 vehicles were newly registered in March, down 38 per cent on the same month last year, according to the VDA. Over the whole first quarter of 2020, the number of new registrations fell by 20 per cent to 701,300.

"The spread of the coronavirus and the associated public health measures that have been required - such as the massive restrictions on public life, the closure of businesses and the restricted working capacity of registration offices - played a significant role," the VDA said.

Production has also fallen considerably. German manufacturers only built 287,900 cars last month, 37 per cent fewer than in March 2019, according to the VDA. Production declined by 20 per cent over the entire quarter.

The decline in exports was similar, reaching 32 per cent in March.

"We are facing a challenge of an unprecedented scale," VDA president Hildegard Mueller told dpa.

She called for the economic consequences of the coronavirus crisis to be "seriously assessed" before any further burdens are placed on the car industry, such as stricter EU limits on emissions after 2030.