Volkswagen Group Reaches 4 Million EV Sales

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Volkswagen Group has just reached 4 million electric vehicle (BEV) cumulative deliveries. It’s a nice milestone to celebrate, and not a lot of automakers can claim to have achieved this, but it’s also far off of the company’s plans from just a handful of years ago.

If you’re confused because just over one week ago I wrote about Volkswagen reaching 2 million EV deliveries, note that that was just about the Volkswagen brand, whereas today we’re talking about Volkswagen Group.

Volkswagen Group was the 4th best automaker in the world last year for plugin vehicle sales globally, and was 5th for fully electric vehicle sales. For plugin vehicle sales, with 7% of the global market, it was just behind Tesla (7.9% market share), and also behind #1 BYD Group (22.2%) and #2 Geely (11.1%). For full battery electrics, it had 7.2% share, trailing BYD Group (16.6%), Tesla (12%), Geely (10.4%), and SAIC (7.9%). As we can see, it is the top European automaker when it comes to EV sales.

Anyway, though, let’s get back to the news. As noted when writing about Volkswagen reaching 2 million EV sales, Volkswagen Group launched its first fully electric production vehicle when it launched the VW e-Up! in 2013, and its second was the VW e-Golf in 2014. I distinctly remember test driving those vehicles, because they were two of the first EVs I ever drove. They were good value for money offerings back then, but with EV technology (esp. batteries) rapidly evolving and costs being driven down, the options today are certainly far, far, far better.

It was with the launch of the Modular Electric Drive Matrix (MEB) that Volkswagen Group really got moving on EVs, so it’s not surprising to find out that about 3 million of the company’s 4 million EV deliveries have been MEB-based models.

“With its product offensive across all brands over the past two years, the Volkswagen Group has comprehensively renewed its portfolio and launched around 60 new models. Around one-third of these have an all-electric drive. The Group brands currently offer their customers more than 30 all-electric vehicles in the passenger car segment alone, from compact cars to luxury SUVs. In addition, there are all-electric trucks and buses from the TRATON brands Scania, MAN, International, and Volkswagen Truck & Bus. This gives the Volkswagen Group one of the most comprehensive BEV portfolios in the automotive industry,” Volkswagen Group writes. Can’t argue with that. (Imagine Tesla having 30 different EV models.)

“In the current year, the Group is consistently expanding its range and once again bringing more than 20 new models onto the road, around half of which are all-electric. These include pioneering new electric models in China and the Electric Urban Car Family in Europe, consisting of four all-electric vehicles in the entry-level segment.” Exciting times ahead!

Around 95% of Volkswagen Group’s total EV sales have come from just three markets — Europe, China, and the US. Europe, in particular, Europe accounts for 68% of the company’s cumulative EV sales. China accounts for 20%, and the USA about 8%. So, really, its Europe that mostly determines how well Volkswagen Group is doing.

Here’s a bit more on the details:

“At around 72 percent, the clear majority of BEVs were accounted for by the Brand Group Core, which serves the volume segment. With around two million vehicles, around half came from the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand. This was followed by Škoda with 480,000 units, SEAT/CUPRA with 230,000 units, and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles with 140,000 units.

“The Brand Group Progressive contributed around 22 percent of all BEVs. This comprises 870,000 Audi models in the premium segment.

“Around six percent of all-electric vehicles were delivered in the Brand Group Sport Luxury. This amounted to 250,000 Porsche vehicles that the sports car brand handed over to its customers.

“The Brand Group Trucks accounted for a total of around 0.3 percent of BEV deliveries, corresponding to around 11,000 vehicles.”

Around 70% of BYD’s EV sales were in the compact class, about 70% of them. Here are the company’s 10 best selling EV models so far (in thousands):

While it’s easy to look at the numbers and be impressed, one does have to note that several years ago, Volkswagen Group set the target of selling 3 million electric vehicles a year in 2025. So much for achieving that!