The German concern Volkswagen (VW) sold fewer vehicles in 2022 for the third year in a row. Group sales totalled 8.26 million vehicles, the lowest level in eleven years, VW announced on Thursday.
Sales of cars (with brands such as Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda, Seat and Porsche), buses and trucks (MAN, Scania, etc.) were 7 percent lower than in 2021. According to the group, this is due to chip shortages affecting production disturbed. However, it expects that the bottlenecks will decrease this year.
Of the car brands of Europe’s largest car manufacturer, only Porsche (+2.6 percent to 309,900 units) and Lamborghini and Bentley (+5.8 percent to 24,400 units for both brands combined) performed better than in 2021. Volkswagen’s largest brand saw sales fall by 6.8 percent to more than 4.5 million units. Audi, with a factory in Brussels, remained 4 percent below the 2021 level, with more than 1.6 million cars delivered. The largest decreases were at Seat/Cupra (-18.1 percent) and Skoda (-16.7 percent).
Sales of electric vehicles did increase. Last year, 572,000 were delivered worldwide, a quarter (26 percent) more than in 2021. In the meantime, 6.9 percent of all cars sold by the VW group are electric, compared to 5.1 percent in 2021. This year, that percentage should be around 11 percent, and by 2030 half of the vehicles sold should be electric.
The best-selling electric models include the VW ID.4 and the Audi e-Tron.
