Volkswagen seems to be pushing back against the current global economic headwinds, and has recorded nearly a 50 per cent increase in deliveries of electric cars since the start of the year.
How many EVs has VW sold?
Volkswagen says that it has sold 465,500 new battery-electric cars (that's excluding hybrids and plug-in hybrids) since the start of the year, which is a 47 per cent increase over the same period last year. Its electric car sales share has grown in Europe - from seven to 11 per cent - and the overall VW Group is the market leader for electric cars in the EU, with a total market share of 28 per cent.
What happens next?
Well, it looks as if 'sell more EVs' is what happens next. VW says that across the whole group, incoming orders for new models have risen by 19 per cent, with customers especially keen on the VW ID.7 Tourer, Cupra Terramar, Skoda Elroq, and Audi Q6 e-tron (although the continuing popularity of the not-electric Porsche 911 has skewed those figures slightly).
Demand for plug-in hybrid models - such as the Skoda Superb and the VW Tiguan - is also increasing, with VW reporting that deliveries of PHEVs are up by 41 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Where is VW selling all these cars?
Demand in Europe grew slightly, by two per cent overall in the year to date. In the whole of North America, VW Group sales declined by 6.7 per cent, but in the USA specifically - oddly, given the recent tariffs furore - sales were actually up by 6.2 per cent. In South America, things have been going very well for the Group, with sales climbing by 18.3 per cent, which helped to offset a drop of 1.3 per cent in Asia, with the Chinese market proving especially tough for the VW Group, as for everyone.
Which of VW's brands are doing best?
The Volkswagen brand itself has had a solid start to the year, with growth of four per cent globally. SEAT and Cupra saw sales fall by 1.9 per cent, but this was massively overshadowed by Skoda, which saw a huge 18.7 increase in its sales around the world.
VW Group's high-performance brands didn't do so well. Audi saw its sales drop by 8.2 per cent; Bentley was down by 16.2 per cent; and Lamborghini sales fell by 7.3 per cent.
Overall, the VW Group as a whole - including VW Commercial Vehicles, VW Truck and Bus, MAN, and Scania - saw its total deliveries improve by one per cent, to 4.41 million vehicles. Of that, 465,000 were fully electric, and 192,000 were plug-in hybrids.
“The Volkswagen Group continues to have strong momentum thanks to many newly launched models. This applies especially to all-electric vehicles, with global deliveries up by around 50 per cent in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year. This trend was particularly strong in Europe, with growth of around 90 per cent. One in five of the vehicles we delivered in Western Europe is now purely electric. The corresponding orders are also developing dynamically: they increased by more than 60 per cent. Across all drive types, they went up by around 20 per cent. We need to further strengthen this positive development by continuing our successful model offensive. Overall, we were able to slightly increase our global deliveries by the end of June despite challenging conditions. Gains in South America and Europe more than offset the expected declines in China and North America,” said Marco Schubert, Member of the Group's Extended Executive Committee for Sales.