The persistent chip shortage and supply chain problems in the auto industry have Volkswagen’s Root brand struggled in the US market last year. Sales fell by 19.7 percent to 301,069 new cars compared to the previous year, as the carmaker announced on Thursday. the share
fell by more than 1 percent, also because Tesla lowered prices again in China on Friday.
In the fourth quarter, the company sold 22,303 cars with the VW logo to US customers – a drop of 20.5 percent compared to the same period last year. One bright spot was the ID.4 electric model. Here sales increased by 171 percent in the final quarter. However, the e-car does not yet make a particularly large contribution to the volume – VW only sold 20,511 units over the entire year.
The other German car manufacturers also posted sales declines in the USA last year. The VW subsidiary Audi delivered 186,875 vehicles and thus 5 percent less than in the previous year, as announced on Wednesday. Audi increased sales in the fourth quarter by 63 percent. The upper class rival bmw recorded a 1.3 percent decline in its parent brand in 2022 to 332,388 cars, although sales in the final quarter rose by 9.4 percent. At the subsidiary Mini, US sales for the year as a whole fell by 1.4 percent to 29,504 new cars. The numbers from Porsche and Mercedes-Benz are still pending.
GM is again selling more cars than Toyota
One of the few winners of the weak year was General Motors (GM). Contrary to the negative market trend, the largest US automaker slightly increased sales and broke away from its rival Toyota as the top-selling manufacturer. GM said it delivered 2.27 million new cars to US customers on Wednesday, an increase of 3 percent over the previous year. Heavy SUVs and pick-up trucks in particular remained in demand.
In 2021, the Japanese were just a step ahead – GM lost its market leadership for the first time since 1931 United States. The US car giant has now managed to achieve a strong end of the year. In the fourth quarter, sales increased 41 percent year-on-year. The US heavyweight ford on the other hand, announced a drop in sales of around 2 percent to around 1.86 million new cars for 2022.
The main problem for the industry last year was not that inflation discouraged US customers from buying – thanks to higher prices, most manufacturers continued to earn well. In view of the chip shortage and other supply bottlenecks, sales suffered from the fact that demand could not be properly served.
According to analysis house Wards Intelligence, industry-wide sales fell by 8 percent to 13.7 million cars, the lowest level since 2011. Things are likely to pick up again in the new year, but the outlook remains cautious. Wards expects 14.9 million new cars to be sold. That would leave the market well below the pre-pandemic mark of at least 17 million.