Still number 3 in the world in electric cars, Volkswagen still faces difficulties in this area. This is evidenced by its very disappointing sales figures for the 1st quarter of 2024, which are in sharp decline.
With sales increasing in France and Europe, the electric car is enjoying growing success. And this since the offer is more and more vast and that the public authorities continue the financial incentives, although they are slowly starting to tighten the screw.
Volkswagen looks dull
But not all manufacturers are really in the same boat when it comes to electric car registrations. And for good reason, Tesla and BYD remain the world leaders, while Elon Musk’s firm has overtaken its rival and has sold more than 1.8 million zero-emission (exhaust) cars. last year. On the 3rd step of the podium, we find Volkswagen, with only 771,100 cars sold in 2023.
The German manufacturer is still lagging behind, its electric cars having difficulty finding their customers. So much so that the firm was forced to implement a draconian plan in order to redress the situation. Because it also faces difficulties with its subsidiary Cariad dedicated to the software part of its vehicles. But while Volkswagen recently unveiled its product plan, where are its sales of electric cars?
Well unfortunately, it’s far from being very glorious for the Wolfsburg-based manufacturer. The latter has just revealed its figures for the first quarter of 2024 in a press release, and we cannot say that they are very good. Certainly, overall registrations increased by 3%, also including thermal models. But looking only at electric, it’s much more worrying.
The German manufacturer has not sold that 74,400 cars in Europe between the months of January and March 2024, compared to 98,300 over the same period last year. Which corresponds to a fall of 24.31% in one year throughout the Old Continent. Globally, electric car registrations fell 3% for Volkswagen, while they increased 91.2% in China.
Volkswagen wants to be reassuring
Furthermore, in what the manufacturer calls the “rest of the world”, sales of zero-emission (tailpipe) cars increased by 40.6%. At the same time, and as indicated by journalists fromClean AutomotiveVolvo has increased its electric deliveries by 27% in Europe over the same period, while BMW reached 40.6%. Suffice to say that the disparities are enormous between the different manufacturers.
But what is the reason? It may be that the elimination of the ecological bonus in Germany at the start of 2024 has something to do with it, since the country is obviously a capital market for the firm. Indeed, there, the share of electric car sales has fallen from 18.4% in 2023 to 12% this year, partly for this reason. But that’s not all, because we also observe a global disenchantment with the group’s models.
So much so that last year, production of some of them had to be interrupted due to lack of demand. Since the start of the year, the ID.4 and ID.5 duo have been the best-selling among the firm’s models, with 34,600 units. They are followed by the Volkswagen ID.3 (26,100 units) and the Audi Q4 e-tron (22,800 units). The group should now focus on its future ID.2all at less than 25,000 euros to appeal, as well as on its even more affordable ID.1.
In the meantime, the latter wants to be reassuring and indicates in its press release that “ the number of 100% electric models ordered more than doubled year-on-year (+154%) during the first quarter of 2024“.