Volkswagen handed over 394,000 EVs in 2023. Although EV deliveries were up 21% from last year, they still represented less than 9% of the VW brand’s total deliveries. The company said it expects the market to “remain challenging” this year.
The Volkswagen brand handed over 394K EVs in 2023
The Volkswagen brand announced fully electric vehicle sales grew by 21.1% in 2023, with around 394,000 EVs handed over.
Its largest markets included China, Germany, the US, the UK, Sweden, France, Norway, and Belgium. VW delivered around 30,000 ID.4 models in Germany, up 62.9%. In the US, around 38,000 ID.4 electric SUVs were handed over (+84.2% YOY).
In China, VW’s most important market (with ~40% of sales), over 75,000 ID.3 EVs were handed over, an over 200% increase.
Despite this, Volkswagen EVs represented only 8% of the total 4.87 million vehicles sold last year. The automaker cut EV production several times last year, citing slowing demand.
Volkswagen’s CFO Arno Antilitz said EV orders fell to 150,000 in Europe last October. That’s half of the 300,000 VW had last year at that time.
Hildegard Wortmann, who oversees VW’s marketing and sales, explained that the lower order intake was “due to the lower-than-expected overall market trend.” According to Wortmann, the growth in EV sales last year was thanks to a higher backlog.
VW faced several supply chain issues that extended delivery times and are now being worked out. The VW Group said it expected EV sales share to reach around 8% to 10% in 2023, down from 11%.
The automaker hopes its refreshed ID.4 and ID.5 can help jumpstart sales. VW’s updated EVs feature longer range and added tech.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen slashed EV prices in Europe earlier this week as it looks to compete with Tesla. Tesla’s Model Y looks to be the best-selling car (electric or gas) in 2023 as the EV leader continues expanding its network.
VW fell behind Tesla in US market share as EV adoption continues climbing. Tesla ended 2023 with 4.2% share of the US auto market.
Electrek’s Take
While Volkswagen looks to make up for lost time, other automakers are pulling ahead. Many automakers are already at double-digit (or 100%) EV sales.
Volkswagen EVs accounted for 8.3% of total deliveries in 2023. That’s up 1.4% from 2022 (6.9%). Meanwhile, other automakers, like Volvo, are already achieving over 15% EV share.
Volvo sold over 113,000 EVs last year, up 70% compared to 2022 (66,749). The Swedish automaker has several new models, including the EX30 (check out our review), starting at $35,000, that it expects to fuel EV sales in 2024.
Jim Rowan, Volvo’s CEO, said, “We are not seeing any order cancellations or any slowdown in order intake,” despite the reported “EV market slowdown.”
While Volvo aims to be an all-electric brand by 2030, VW targets 50% EV sales. Automakers like Volvo and Hyundai, who have committed to EVs, are reaping the rewards as others fall behind.
Volkswagen hopes new EVs like the ID.7 can help spark growth in 2024. However, Imelda Labbé, VW Board Member, said, “We expect the market environment to remain challenging in 2024.” The company believes it’s in the “right position” with an updated lineup.
Will VW spark EV growth in 2024? Or will it fall further behind leaders like Tesla as the industry shifts to electric? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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The State of Michigan has announced a new partnership with wireless EV charging specialist Electreon and Commercial EV manufacturer Xos, Inc. Together, the companies have secured funding from the state to expand wireless charging availability for commercial vehicles, including UPS trucks in Detroit.
It’s been nearly a year since the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), the City of Detroit, and Electreon ($ELWS) unveiled the first wireless EV charging roadway in the United States.
Michigan installed Electreon’s wireless inductive-charging coils (seen below) on 14th Street in Detroit between Marantette and Dalzelle streets to charge EVs equipped with Electreon receivers as they drive on the road.
At the time. MDOT and Detroit officials said the road would be used to test and perfect Electreon’s wireless EV charging technology in a real-world environment before “making it available to the public in the next few years.”
While the public will not be able to take advantage of wireless charging just yet, commercial EVs are gaining access thanks to a new partnership between Electreon, Xos ($XOS), and the State of Michigan.
Michigan progresses as US wireless EV charging leader
When Michigan announced the first wireless EV charging road in the US last year, officials shared hopes that the Great Lakes State and the city of Detroit could become leaders in the innovation and and deployment of such nascent technology.
Following a press release from Electreon, the State of Michigan confirmed details of the new partnership, which now includes commercial EV developer Xos, Inc. as well. The new commercial partnership is supported by $200,000 in funding from the Michigan Mobility Funding Platform (MMFP), building off the state’s “Make it in Michigan: economic strategy, developed by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) to invest in the state’s people, places and projects.
Through the partnership and coinciding state funding, Electreon will extend its wireless EV charging network and use cases in Michigan. Additionally, Electreon’s technology will be integrated into delivery step vans from Xos in order to “demonstrate wireless charging technological value and its potential to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) in the electrification of commercial truck fleets.” Stefan Tongur, vice president of business development for Electreon, elaborated:
We’re excited to demonstrate how Electreon’s technology can optimize electric fleet usage and showcase the seamless integration of wireless charging into daily fleet operations, minimizing downtime and enabling charging across time and location. We’re proud to do this work in Michigan, a state fostering innovation and sustainable transportation solutions.
In addition to expanding wireless charging on Detroit’s first “electric roadway,” the Michigan project will enable the installation of stationary wireless charging at a UPS facility in Detroit. Xos co-founder and CEO Dakota Semler also spoke:
We are proud to partner with Electreon and support UPS to demonstrate the potential of wireless charging in commercial fleets. This innovative approach will revolutionize how we power our electric vehicles and drive fleet electrification forward.
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The iconic British luxury automaker is undergoing a major brand overhaul. With its official debut around the corner, Jaguar’s electric 4-door GT, the first of its new series, was spotted testing on British roads. The new images give us a closer look at what we can expect from the revamped Jag brand.
Jaguar’s new electric GT makes its first appearance
After building internal combustion-powered sports cars for over 75 years, Jaguar will become an all-electric luxury brand from 2025.
The company announced earlier this year that it will start fresh with an entirely new range of EVs. After killing off the F-Type, E-Pace, XF, and soon the F-Pace SUV, we are finally getting our first look at what the new branding will look like.
Jaguar’s new electric 4-door GT was caught testing on British roads. The camouflaged prototypes reveal a radically different look than the Jag models we are accustomed to.
You can see one of the biggest changes is the low-riding, extended silhouette, as opposed to the crossover SUV and sedan models like the F-Type and I-Pace, Jaguar’s first EV.
The front and rear bumper designs also appear much more aggressive and bold than previous models.
Jaguar’s electric GT is being put through the paces ahead of its debut. It has already completed tens of thousands of testing miles (virtual and real-world) and will soon hit public streets worldwide.
The new model will be built in Solihull, UK, where Jaguar recently ended production of its gas-powered models.
It will be the first to ride on Jaguar’s new JAE (Jaguar Electric Architecture), which will underpin its upcoming lineup of high-end luxury EVs with prices over £100,000 ($130,000). The electric GT will have a range of over 434 miles (700 km) and upwards of 575 hp, making it Jaguar’s most powerful car of all time.
Jaguar will debut its Design Vision Concept at Miami Art Week on December 2, 2024. Next Summer, it’s expected to make its official global debut ahead of deliveries in 2026.
What do you think of Jaguar’s new design based on what’s shown? Are you excited about the brand overhaul? Let us know in the comments below.
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Tesla has pushed a new (Supervised) Full Self-Driving update with the promised end-to-end neural networks for highway driving.
However, it’s only for newer vehicles.
“End-to-end” is what Tesla refers to as neural net-powered AI driving the vehicle from vision to controls rather than the controls being explicitly coded. It’s already the case in all widely released versions of (Supervised) Full Self-Driving (FSD) for city driving, but not for highway driving, which uses another software stack.
Tesla originally planned to deliver it for highway driving in October, but it was only delivered to a small number of vehicles.
In its latest AI roadmap, Tesla said that it would come the first week of November instead.
Now, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of self-driving and AI, said that the latest release with end-to-end highway driving (v12.5.6.3) has been widely pushed to HW4 vehicle owners:
With the latest release (v12.5.6.3), FSD is using end-to-end neural networks for driving across highways, city streets and parking lots, and has now shipped widely for AI4 vehicles. Highway driving should be smoother, more natural and even safer than the previous explicit control stack. Check out the different driving styles to set speed and lane change preferences. Enjoy and let Tesla AI know if you have any feedback.
However, there’s no word for the millions of HW3 vehicle owners.
In fact, the only thing promised to HW3 vehicles, which Tesla now called AI3, in its last roadmap is this:
Improved v12.5.x models for AI3 city driving
As we have often reported this year, Tesla has reached the limits of the HW3 computer and now needs to optimize the code with every release despite still being far from its promise of unsupervised self-driving.
Electrek’s Take
This is annoying cause I could really use end-to-end on my HW3 car. I am on v12.5.4.2 and it has been a regression from v12.5.4.1 for me, especially on highways.
Yesterday, it almost drove me off-road when taking my highway exit, which is always a bit shaky because it is a short exit and FSD often swings itself into it. It’s a bit awkward, and my girlfriend never likes it, so I disengage FSD before taking the exit when she was with me, but this time, she wasn’t, and I had the new update.
It again swung left before going right into the exit, but this time, it went way too far, and I was in the shoulder by the time I took control.
I took this exit hundreds of times with FSD and it’s the first time it did that.
I am starting to think we won’t see much more improvements to FSD with HW3 cars and there’s no retrofit computer in sight.
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