Volkswagen Group Reaches 217,100 EV Sales in 1st Half of 2022

Sitting somewhere between Chinese EV startups XPeng & NIO and American EV powerhouse Tesla, Volkswagen Group delivered 217,100 full electric vehicle (BEV) sales to customers in the first half of 2022. NIO delivered 50,827 vehicles in that time period, XPeng delivered 68,983, and Tesla delivered 564,743.

Volkswagen Group’s 217,100 BEV deliveries were 27% higher than in the first half of 2021, when they totaled 170,900.

The BEV share of Volkswagen’s total vehicle deliveries is still not spectacular — 5.6%, just above the 5% I recently mentioned Mercedes-Benz had scored in the second quarter — but that is up from 3.4% in the first half of 2021. Progress.

Whereas Volkswagen Group had pretty much been hitting its BEV targets in Europe previously, it was facing struggles inside China, the largest automotive market in the world. The German automaker got through those struggles much more this year. China was where it scored the most BEV sales growth, reaching 63,500 there in the first half of the year. That’s an increase of more than 3× compared to the first half of 2022, and that figure sits right between the XPeng and NIO totals mentioned above.

Europe is still Volkswagen Group’s bread and butter market, though. It had 128,800 BEV deliveries in Europe in the first half of the year, which comes to 59% of Volkswagen Group’s total global BEV sales. China accounted for 29% of its BEV sales, while the USA accounted for … 8% (via 17,000 vehicles). No comment.

As far as the brand breakdown, here’s how things were split:

• Volkswagen — 115,900 BEV deliveries (53% of Volkswagen Group’s total BEV sales).
• Audi — 50,000 vehicle deliveries (23%)
• ŠKODA — 22,200 vehicle deliveries (10%)
• Porsche — 18,900 vehicle deliveries (9%)
• SEAT/CUPRA — 8,300 vehicle deliveries (4%).

The BEV models that found the most new owner homes in the first half of 2022 were:

• Volkswagen ID.4/ID.5 — 66,800 deliveries
• Volkswagen ID.3 — 26,000 deliveries
• Audi e-tron (incl. Sportback) — 24,700 deliveries
• ŠKODA Enyaq iV (incl. Coupé) — 22,200 deliveries
• Porsche Taycan (incl. Cross Turismo) — 18,900 deliveries
• Audi Q4 e-tron (incl. Sportback) — 18,200 deliveries

How does Volkswagen Group’s progress on BEV sales (I mean, deliveries) look in light of these figures? Overall, 27% growth is not nothing, but not amazing. It would be more uplifting to see 50% or 75% or 100% growth, especially with Volkswagen’s plans to become the highest producing, highest selling EV producer in the world. On the other hand, seeing that Volkswagen Group is clearing through (or jumping over?) the hurdles in the Chinese BEV market is a great sign since there is so much potential — or even necessity — in that market. The US sales numbers are quite … meh — but if Volkswagen has only so much supply to spread around the globe due to automotive chip shortages, harness shortages (Volkswagen used to get them from Ukraine), battery shortages (no one ordered enough), and covid-related lockdown bottlenecks in China, one can only expect Volkswagen Group to prioritize the European and Chinese markets over the much less efficient US market. However, if Volkswagen can ramp up its production capacity, I’d expect much more BEV growth than 27% year over year, and that includes stronger growth in the US, China, and Europe.

You can take a closer look at Volkswagen Group BEV deliveries by region or brand on Volkswagen’s website. Here a couple of snapshots that only lack the H1 numbers:

Screenshot from Volkswagen Group website.

Screenshot from Volkswagen Group website.