Volkswagen sells significantly more electric cars

The Volkswagen Group sold significantly more vehicles within the group last year than in the weak previous year. The group delivered 9.24 million vehicles of all group brands worldwide. That is 12 percent more than the year before. Only Toyota was ahead of the Germans with more than 10 million vehicles.

The self-imposed target of 9 to 9.5 million deliveries was therefore achieved. In China, the most important individual market, sales were also slightly above last year's levels due to a strong year-end surge. A total of 3.24 million vehicles were delivered there, two percent more than in 2022, the Wolfsburg company announced on Tuesday.

“Despite many challenges over the past twelve months, we increased our global deliveries by twelve percent to 9.24 million vehicles,” said Group Sales Director Hildegard Wortmann, according to the announcement. “This is a solid performance given the geopolitical and economic conditions.” VW has therefore grown faster than the overall market and has somewhat expanded its global market share.

In 2022, Europe's largest car manufacturer delivered only 8.3 million vehicles worldwide. Supply problems for individual components such as electronic chips had slowed sales.

35 percent more electric cars sold

In 2023, the group managed to expand the number of fully electric cars. The number of deliveries of pure electric cars increased by 35 percent year-on-year to approximately 770,000. The battery cars represented 8.3 percent of the total turnover. This means that Volkswagen is not yet as advanced as a mass manufacturer as others. At the BMW Group, electric cars already accounted for 15 percent of sales last year.

The Wolfsburg core brand VW previously reported an increase of 6.7 percent to 4.87 million deliveries for 2023. The group initially provided no information about the other brands (Audi, Skoda, Seat, Porsche, etc.). The full report on deliveries in 2023 will be presented on Friday.

(sda/awp/dpa)