Volkswagen doubles EV sales in third quarter

One of the world’s most recognisable car brands, Volkswagen has doubled deliveries of electric vehicles in the third quarter, registering a new record of EVs delivered.

Volkswagen Group announced on Friday it delivered a total of 122,100 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to customers globally between July and September, a 109% increase over the same quarter a year ago.

The market ramp-up in China helped push VW’s numbers up in the third quarter, with 28,900 BEVs delivered in the quarter, compared with 18,300 delivered over the first two quarters of the year.

“As planned, we significantly accelerated the BEV market ramp-up in China in the third quarter, and we are on track to meeting our target for the year of delivering 80,000 to 100,000 vehicles of the ID. model family,” said Christian Dahlheim, VW’s head of sales.

Worth noting, however, is that the share of BEVs delivered only accounted for around 6% of the Volkswagen Group’s total deliveries in the third quarter.

The company highlighted the success of its new record BEV number in light of the global shortage of semiconductors, though when and whether this issue will be resolved or if it will continue to impact Volkswagen BEV sales, the company failed to clarify.

Looking at total BEV deliveries in 2021 to date, Volkswagen Group recorded a total of 293,100 BEVs delivered by the end of September – a rise of 138% over the same period a year ago.

Volkswagen Group also delivered on strong demand for plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), with a total of 246,000 delivered over the first nine months – a year-over-year increase of 133%.

Delivery numbers for Volkswagen Group included sales of all its brands, including Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, ŠKODA, and SEAT.

The core Volkswagen brand delivered 167,800 BEVs to customers with a share of 57% of the total Group’s BEV deliveries. This was followed by Audi, which delivered 52,800 BEVs,  Škoda with 32,100 BEVs, Porsche with 28,600 BEVs and SEAT with 8,800 BEVs.

The top five BEV models across the group was led unsurprisingly by the Volkswagen ID.4 and ID.3, which saw respective deliveries of 72,700 units and 52,700 units. This was followed by the Audi e-tron (including the Sportback variant) with 36,100 units delivered.

As reported separately, the Porsche Taycan (including Cross Turismo) saw 28,600 units delivered over the first nine months of the year – which for the first time outsold the brand’s iconic 911.

Meanwhile, the Skoda Enyaq iV saw total deliveries of 28,200 units.

“Our global electric offensive continues to run at full speed: we are clearly the number 1 for all-electric vehicles in Europe, and the number 2 in the USA,” said Dahlheim.