All Press Releases

The Volkswagen brand is forging ahead consistently with its electric offensive and has now announced the first production location in North America. In future, the Chattanooga plant in Tennessee is to produce vehicles based on the modular electric toolkit MEB, a new generation of electric cars. For this purpose, Volkswagen is investing about €700 million ($800 million) in the plant. The expansion of the plant will create up to 1,000 new jobs plus additional jobs at suppliers. The first electric car from Chattanooga is to roll off the production line in 2022. Over the next few years, eight MEB plants are to be developed in Europe, North America and China. Volkswagen is building up the production capacity needed to sell more than 1 million electric cars per year by 2025.

Volkswagen set a new delivery record in 2018, handing over a total of 6.24 million vehicles worldwide for the full year, 0.2 percent more than in 2017. Positive delivery trends in South America (+13.1 percent), the USA (+4.2 percent) and Europe (+3.6 percent) offset considerable economic uncertainty in China, Argentina and Mexico as well as at times severe repercussions as a result of the changeover to WLTP in Western Europe. The SUV offensive along with numerous other new products from the brand proved to be key growth drivers. Volkswagen Board Member for Sales Jürgen Stackmann: “2018 was characterized by considerable uncertainty in some regions, especially in the second half of the year. Overall, though, we were able to combat this with a strong offensive of attractive new products and to offset the adverse effects. Our strategy has paid off. The new delivery record is the result of much hard work.” Volkswagen COO Ralf Brandstätter: “2019 will be another year of enormous challenges for the brand, above all in light of growing geopolitical risks. We must do our homework. Apart from volume growth, we will in future be focusing more closely on earnings performance than we have done in the past. This is about ensuring the long-term profitability of the Volkswagen brand.”

For 45 years the Passat has been on course for the future. Originally launched in 1973, it is now sold on every continent. Volkswagen has built more than 29 million Passat vehicles in eight generations so far. 2019 will see the start of a new evolutionary stage of the most successful mid-size car ever, as the Passat becomes the first in its segment to break through the barrier of 30 million units.

In November, Volkswagen delivered 564,500 vehicles throughout the world, five percent less than in November 2017. In Europe, the effects of WLTP became less and less pronounced. Deliveries by Volkswagen were up 1.2 percent here. Brazil continues to drive growth in South America. The market situation in China remains tense. Nevertheless, Volkswagen succeeds in boosting its market share there in a shrinking overall market. All in all, the brand faces a challenging market environment with strong headwinds in some regions. Nevertheless, Volkswagen has delivered 5.7 million passenger cars to customers throughout the world in the year to date, 1.2 percent more than in the prior-year period. Volkswagen Board Member for Sales Jürgen Stackmann: “In view of the difficult conditions we face, Volkswagen is very well-positioned with respect to deliveries. How we bring the year to a close will now depend on December. We still need 530,000 deliveries to match last year’s record. In my opinion, we could succeed and perhaps even record slightly higher deliveries.”

The Volkswagen brand is to significantly improve its earnings performance in the coming years in order to finance investments in future technologies from its own resources. To this end, the model portfolio is being streamlined and the number of variants reduced. At the same time, productivity at the plants is to be increased and the platform orientation for vehicle production extended. Optimizing material costs is to contribute significantly to achieving the target return – without detracting from product substance. Administration processes will become even leaner. “We must force the pace of our transformation and become more efficient and agile. We cannot let up in our efforts and must realize further substantial improvements. What we have achieved so far is still not enough,” said Ralf Brandstätter, the brand’s Chief Operating Officer responsible for day-to-day business.

The Beetle, along with the the New Beetle, is a true icon in the history of automobile manufacture. Volkswagen of America, Inc. celebrates the last production year of the Beetle and Beetle Cabriolet with the “Final Edition” special models. The two particularly stylish Beetles will be presented at the Los Angeles Auto Show 2018 (28 Nov – 9 Dec 2018).

As a run-up to this year’s Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition, the Volkswagen brand presented its SUV model series for the Chinese market. Auto-China Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition is one of China’s largest international auto shows. As part of its Chinese “Move Forward” brand initiative, Volkswagen is energising not only its brand, but also its products. The current Chinese SUV family, consisting of six models, is a good example of this: The currently available models Tiguan and Teramont and the new generation of the top-of-the-line Touareg will be joined this year on the Chinese market by three completely new SUV models: T-Roc, Tayron and Tharu.

At 516,900 vehicles, worldwide deliveries by the Volkswagen brand in October were 6.2 percent below the figure for October 2017. This development was mainly due to the continuing reluctance of purchasers in China as a result of the trade dispute with the USA. In Europe, as expected, deliveries continued to be affected by the WLTP changeover, although the impact was significantly less marked than in September. Strong positive impetus came from Brazil (+61.8 percent) and Russia (+23.9 percent). In the year to date, Volkswagen has handed over a total of 5.14 million vehicles to customers, a record figure for January to October. Volkswagen Brand Board Member for Sales Jürgen Stackmann: “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. We expect this recovery to continue in November and December. All in all, we face a challenging market environment throughout the world. It is therefore all the more gratifying to note that our deliveries from January to October were almost two percent higher than the record figure reported by the brand for the corresponding period in 2017.“

Volkswagen is today unveiling the Tarok Concept to the world at the São Paulo International Motor Show (6 to 18 November). The all-wheel drive all-rounder combines the progressive features of the latest generation of digitally networked SUVs with the versatility of a cleverly designed five-metre pick-up. Its innovative new features include a large variable loading area, which can be extended thanks to the folding rear panel in the spacious four-door double cab. As with the technical layout, the Tarok Concept has been designed from scratch down to the very last millimetre.

In the first three quarters of the current fiscal year 2018, the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand continued to develop well in a challenging market environment. Following the first nine months of the year, the deliveries and sales revenue of the Volkswagen Group’s lead brand remain above the prior-year level. With 4.6 million vehicles handed over to customers (+2.9 percent), these were the most successful first nine months that the brand has ever experienced. Driven by higher sales and an improved product mix, the Volkswagen brand was able to boost sales revenue by 7.3 percent to €62.5 billion. At €2.3 billion, the operating profit before special items was slightly below the prior-year level (€2.5 billion) as a result of factors including the expected impact of the WLTP changeover and higher distribution expenses in connection with the environmental incentive. Operating return on sales was 3.7 percent, compared with the figure of 4.3 percent for the prior-year period. The diesel issue gave rise to special items of €-1.6 billion (2017: €-2.6 billion).