Volkswagen Had A Great 2022: 26% More EVs, More Than 15,000 Rapid Charging Stations

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

While still far behind EV leader Tesla, Volkswagen is making progress on electric vehicles. During 2022, it managed to make a significant increase in EV production and by the end of the year Volkswagen had put in a total of 15,000 EV rapid charging stations (so far). Let’s take a deeper look at the information Volkswagen provided about each aspect of its EV business.

EV Production Up 26%

The Volkswagen Group (including brands like VW, Porsche, and more) says it has made significant progress toward EV transformation in 2022. Despite supply challenges and temporary manufacturing halts, global customers received 572,100 all-electric vehicles — a remarkable 26% increase from 2021. This pushed the BEV share of total deliveries to 6.9% compared to last year’s 5.1% rate. In its home market Europe, Volkswagen Group has remained as the top BEV leader while in America it holds fourth place; however, China was where it experienced its greatest spike with an astonishing 68% year-over-year growth.

Things weren’t as nice for gas- and diesel-powered cars. Total global deliveries of vehicles were 7% lower than last year’s total of 8.3 million vehicles due to the aforementioned issues. Luckily, in the second half of 2022, supplies improved and led to a 12% annual increase in sales; however this was not enough to cover up for the 22% plunge during the first six months of that year. Despite all these setbacks, an impressive order bank remains stable with 1.8 million vehicles just from Western Europe alone — 310,000 being electric cars.

So, it’s pretty clear that electric vehicles are an important and growing part of VW’s business, even if only a small portion at present.

“Our brands have shown a decent performance regarding deliveries in a very challenging environment last year. I am particularly pleased that our electric transformation gained further traction across the brands and that we reached our target share of around 7 to 8 percent for all-electric vehicles despite these headwinds,” said Hildegard Wortmann, Member of the Extended Executive Committee for Sales. “The high order bank is a clear proof that customers love our entire strong product portfolio. That gives us confidence for 2023 despite weakening macroeconomics and ongoing supply shortages. The latter are expected to improve step by step in the course of the year.”

The Volkswagen Group says it is committed to being a software-driven provider of sustainable mobility and has made the electrification of its model range the cornerstone of its transformation. Despite facing numerous roadblocks such as semiconductor shortages and lockdowns due to Covid, Volkswagen has remained consistent in advancing its electric strategy. By 2050 at latest, it plans to prove this commitment through by a carbon neutral balance sheet.

If Volkswagen can keep the growth up, it just might make it. In the last three years, the share of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) skyrocketed from 2.5% in 2020 to 6.9% in 2021 and is continuing to increase as more production sites opened up during 2022 in Emden, Hanover, and Chattanooga, with Wolfsburg following suit this year. The Group intends for BEV deliveries to reach around 11% by 2023 — a milestone towards achieving its goal that every second car delivered worldwide will be all-electric come 2030.

Last year, the top selling EVs were the Volkswagen ID.4 and ID.3, followed by the ŠKODA Enyaq iV and Audi Q4 e-tron.

VW Has Put In Over 15,000 Rapid Charging Stations Globally

The Volkswagen Group has just finished an interim evaluation of its global fast-charging points network: By 2022, more than 15,000 high-power chargers with up to 350 kW charging power had been connected — that’s one third of its total goal amounting to 45,000 HPC points.

In an effort to make electric vehicles more accessible around the globe, Power Day 2021 proudly unveiled its ambitious plan of establishing a global HPC network that would be linked together by all partnering international car manufacturers. This groundbreaking initiative plans to bring about 10,000 HPC points across Europe and 25,000 worldwide to fruition by 2023.

“Volkswagen started creating this global fast-charging network years ago. We are now among the trailblazers in electric mobility, and we have 15,000 fast-charging points in North America, China and Europe to prove it,” said Thomas Schmall, Volkswagen Group Board Member for Technology and CEO of Volkswagen Group Components. “It is an accomplishment that we achieved jointly with our industry and energy-sector partners. We consider charging to be not only a precondition for e-mobility, but also a high-potential strategic business area of the future. We intend to expand it even further in the future.”

The Group brands Audi and Volkswagen Passenger Cars, together with the renowned sports-car maker Porsche, have joined forces to form IONITY in order to install fast-charging points across Europe. To further this effort, last year they also created Ewiva — a joint venture between themselves and Enel X Way from the reputable Enel Group. Additionally, Volkswagen has partnered with BP and Iberdrola for installing an additional 8,000 charging points all over Europe, working hand in hand to make EV travel easier than ever before. Volkswagen Components’ Flexpole fast-charging station is one of the systems being integrated into this network in order to strengthen it. The Group has partnered with Iberdrola to ensure that major roads throughout Spain are equipped with the necessary infrastructure for electric vehicles charging.

Here in the United States, Electrify America is in charge of extending the Group’s electric infrastructure. Meanwhile, this process is led by CAMS — a joint venture between Volkswagen and its partners — over in China. At Power Day, VW revealed its ambitions to expand its high power charging (HPC) network up to 45,000 HPC stations all around the world: 18K for Europe, 10K for North America, and 17K for China by 2025.

“Our goal is to make electric mobility accessible to everyone. The successes we have achieved with our strong partners send one clear message: We are applying the right strategy,” said Elke Temme, SVP Charging & Energy. “Together, we can create sustainable and accessible mobility of the future.”

This effort is part of the NEW AUTO strategy the company set out on in 2021. Volkswagen is not only constructing a worldwide web of public charge points, but it’s also offering an expansive selection of personal and corporate charging solutions, from Volkswagen’s Wallbox to portable rapid chargers, financing services, and cutting-edge green energy packages. Furthermore, the company is devoted to weaving electric automobiles into the power grid as mobile batteries, unlocking extra advantages for motorists.

Featured image provided by Volkswagen.


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Jennifer Sensiba

Jennifer Sensiba is a long time efficient vehicle enthusiast, writer, and photographer. She grew up around a transmission shop, and has been experimenting with vehicle efficiency since she was 16 and drove a Pontiac Fiero. She likes to get off the beaten path in her "Bolt EAV" and any other EVs she can get behind the wheel or handlebars of with her wife and kids. You can find her on Twitter here, Facebook here, and YouTube here.

Jennifer Sensiba has 1902 posts and counting. See all posts by Jennifer Sensiba