In the first five months of this year, Volkswagen produced 97,000 battery electric cars in European plants, but only 73,000 of them were sold. For comparison, Tesla’s Model Y alone sold over a hundred thousand in Europe during the same period, Handelsblatt cited data from Marklines. The alarming shallowness of demand should concern the entire family of electric ID cars, i.e. the ID.3, ID.4, ID.5 and the ID minivan. Buzz.
According to Handelsblatt’s sources, some models have almost stopped being sold. Manufacturers have run out of previously obtained orders from companies, and the supply of new ones has slowed down significantly. Interest from private individuals was and will continue to be much weaker. German dealers explain the weak demand mainly from private individuals by the reduction of state subsidies for the purchase of electric cars, high inflation and the high cost of cars with batteries under the floor.
Chinese manufacturers are also making Volkswagen’s fight more difficult. Only the MG4 model, a direct competitor of the ID.3, was registered over twenty-three thousand units across Europe. ID.3 reached almost 28,000 registrations, in addition, it was produced significantly more – over 36,000. According to Marklines data, a similar disparity between production and sales should also apply to ID models. Buzz. From January to May, roughly nine thousand of them should have been produced in Hanover, but buyers in Europe registered only 5,577 of them.
A spokeswoman for the manufacturer confirmed to the German newspaper that Volkswagen feels “a general reluctance to buy electric cars, just like other car companies”. Due to lower demand for ID.4 and ID.7 Volkswagen at the end of June temporarily reduced production of electric cars at the factory in Emden. The group’s planners overestimated demand by about thirty percent, the Nordwest-Zeitung newspaper reported, adding that some production shifts were canceled entirely. In addition, everyone who works on electric models will extend the subsequent three-week racing holidays by one week.
Although the concern improved by sixteen percent year-on-year in terms of the number of registered cars in the first half of the year, it drew on pending orders from the past. According to Handelsblatt, at the beginning of the year, the Volkswagen brand alone had 650,000 customers waiting for their car. But this stack of orders is thinning faster than the concern’s flagship had planned.
An unpleasant impact on the reality of the market can threaten the very existence of some production plants in Europe, repeatedly warned Jaroslav Povšík, head of the Škoda Auto trade union, which is a member of the concern.
In the last issue of the trade union paper, he referred to the recent meeting of the European and World Council of the concern with these words: “Tension and uncertainty were felt at every step. We are all entering a difficult period. It was clear from every statement, however cool, that especially in Europe there is overcapacity as such and also overcapacity in relation to products. Some localities have cars in stock, unlike Škoda. It has the largest number of customers in history, which it cannot satisfy due to the chip and other supply crisis.”
So far, Škoda is facing rather the opposite problem, mostly business customers in European markets have to wait around six months for Enyaq electric models. Nevertheless, the threat of forced layoffs hangs over the car company from Mladá Boleslav, Povšík indicated.
Problems with insufficient demand for electric cars are far from just Volkswagen. Agency Reuters for example, she pointed out that the market for electric cars in the United States is growing, but not at a fast enough rate that some dealers are piling up unsold cars in inventory. This could be a short-term thing, but it could also be a sign that the US EV market will grow more slowly than expected, despite federal and state incentives.
View Volkswagen electric models from the ID family:
2023-07-14 17:00:00
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