Photo: Volkswagen
Sales of one of the biggest names of the auto industry on the planet, Volkswagen, continued to drop in October, as the numbers are affected by various external factors.
Globally, the carmaker sold 516,900 new cars last month, which represents a drop of 6.2 percent compared to the same period of last year.
There are two main reasons behind this involution of the brand: the Chinese market, where customers seem to be on a standby because of the trade dispute with the United States, and the European one, where the need to comply with the new Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure has caused problems for the sale of some models.
Whereas the Chinese problem cannot be solved by Volkswagen, the European one is pretty much the Germans’ own doing.
Since it was announced, WLTP forced carmakers to use the procedure for all new cars built, because as of September 1 no car can be sold in Europe without emission levels measured under WLTP.
Most automakers, including the Germans, did have a sizeable stock of cars at dealers that hadn’t been tested, and are currently in the process.
In China, Volkswagen sold 274,100 vehicles, a hefty drop of 9.8 percent compared to October 2017, while in Europe the drop was a tad milder, 7.1 percent to a total of 122,000.
“We are making good progress with the WLTP changeover of our model range and deliveries in Europe were affected much less severely in October than in September.” said in a statement Volkswagen’s head of sales, Jürgen Stackmann.
“We expect this recovery to continue in November and December. All in all, we face a challenging market environment throughout the world.”
Stackmann mentions a two percent increase in sales from the beginning of the year until the start of October, an increase which was wiped out by the bad performance in October and is now only 0.4 percent.
Since the beginning of 2018, Volkswagen sold a total of 2,550,400 new cars.
There are two main reasons behind this involution of the brand: the Chinese market, where customers seem to be on a standby because of the trade dispute with the United States, and the European one, where the need to comply with the new Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure has caused problems for the sale of some models.
Whereas the Chinese problem cannot be solved by Volkswagen, the European one is pretty much the Germans’ own doing.
Since it was announced, WLTP forced carmakers to use the procedure for all new cars built, because as of September 1 no car can be sold in Europe without emission levels measured under WLTP.
Most automakers, including the Germans, did have a sizeable stock of cars at dealers that hadn’t been tested, and are currently in the process.
In China, Volkswagen sold 274,100 vehicles, a hefty drop of 9.8 percent compared to October 2017, while in Europe the drop was a tad milder, 7.1 percent to a total of 122,000.
“We are making good progress with the WLTP changeover of our model range and deliveries in Europe were affected much less severely in October than in September.” said in a statement Volkswagen’s head of sales, Jürgen Stackmann.
“We expect this recovery to continue in November and December. All in all, we face a challenging market environment throughout the world.”
Stackmann mentions a two percent increase in sales from the beginning of the year until the start of October, an increase which was wiped out by the bad performance in October and is now only 0.4 percent.
Since the beginning of 2018, Volkswagen sold a total of 2,550,400 new cars.
Google News