After one of supply chain problems and lack of material After the weak previous year, the US car market got off to a better start in the first quarter of 2023. This also benefited Volkswagen. According to its own statement, the carmaker sold 67,853 vehicles with the VW logo in the first quarter – around 4.4 percent more than a year ago. Urban SUVs such as the Atlas SUV model, which is popular with US customers, accounted for 90 percent of sales. The manufacturer belonging to the VW Group Audi even increased sales by 49 percent to 52,763 cars. At electric cars the increase was 37 percent.
At the market leader General Motors (GM) increased sales in the three months to the end of March by 18 percent year-on-year to around 603,200 new vehicles, as the group announced on Monday in Detroit. According to GM, it has delivered more than 20,000 electric cars.
Also Audi’s rival bmw increased sales in the USA in the first quarter. The company announced at its US headquarters in Woodcliff Lake that 82,466 BMW vehicles had been sold. That was 11.9 percent more than in the same period last year. Deliveries of the subsidiary brand Mini increased by 5.9 percent to 7284 cars.
while too Hyundai, Nissan and Honda posted significant increases, the industry giant did Toyota further heavy. Here, US sales fell by 9.1 percent to 176,456 vehicles. The figures of other car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and the second largest US manufacturer ford were not yet available. Intractable supply chain issues and shortages of key components like computer chips had left the US market in 2022 with its worst sales performance in over a decade.
US market difficult for European automakers
In the USA, demand for electric cars in particular will grow rapidly in the coming years, with strong government support – but the US market is difficult for European car manufacturers, according to a study by the management consultancy Berylls: It is much more fragmented than the Chinese market and the European core market.
Industry experts expect that by 2030, one in five new cars in the US will be electric. Annual sales should increase to over 6.3 million electric cars by then. In view of the size of the market and the product requirements of American motorists, according to the study, car manufacturers “can no longer see the USA as another sales market for the sale of their cars in Europe or China vehicles” – a product strategy tailored to the USA is therefore necessary, the consultants warn.
“California Dreaming is not enough”: California is currently the leader in e-car sales in the USA. But the differences between the states in terms of population density, specific customer requirements, infrastructure development and purchase incentives down to the municipal level are large, said study author Henning Ludes.
Access to in-country funding also requires a re-evaluation of supply chains and go-to-market strategies. “The plans of Tesla in Nevada, Ford in Michigan and VW in Ontario are just the beginning,” the study says. Many corporate board members still see gaps in competence among their suppliers and partners, from technical skills to the e-car competence of their dealer network. According to Berylls, the best-selling vehicle in the United States is the Ford F-150 pickup truck. When it comes to e-cars, Tesla is ahead with a 64 percent market share and a 15 percent profit margin.