The Volkswagen Group recorded 465,500 BEV deliveries worldwide in the first half of 2025, 47% more than in the same period of last year. The VW Group’s electric cars were in demand in the USA and especially in Europe; however, there was a sharp decline in China.

The 465,500 electric cars delivered in the first half of the year, along with a 46.7% increase compared to H1 2024, represent a positive development. However, it is also clear that the Group was not quite able to maintain the enormous growth from the first quarter of 2025 (+59%) in Q2.

The 248,700 electric cars delivered between April and June are an improvement on the opening quarter, with 216,900 BEVs. Still, these 248,700 electric cars in Q2 correspond to an increase of ‘only’ 37.6 % compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

“The Volkswagen Group continues to have strong momentum thanks to many newly launched models. This applies especially to all-electric vehicles, with global deliveries up by around 50% in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year,” said Marco Schubert, Member of the Extended Group Management Board for Sales.

“This trend was particularly strong in Europe, with growth of around 90%. One in five of the vehicles we delivered in Western Europe is now purely electric. The corresponding orders are also developing dynamically: they increased by more than 60%.”

Europe up, China down, U.S. mixed

The slower electric vehicle growth in Q2 was essentially driven by Europe, with 189,700 BEVs sold, representing a growth of just under 73%. Europe remains, by far, Wolfsburg’s most important market for electric car sales. In the first half of the year, growth reached as high as 89%, with 347,900 electric vehicle deliveries.

In China, the second-largest market, the trend is less positive: in Q2, deliveries fell by 32.6% to 33,400, with a 34.5% drop after the first half of the year. Total VW sales, on the contrary, increased by 2.8%, indicating that the competition for EVs in China is murderous.

In the U.S., the trend is mixed: in the first half of the year, there was a 24.3% increase in EV sales, but in the second quarter, sales declined by 600 vehicles, or 5.2%. Also, total sales fell by 16% in Q2 across the Atlantic, all due to Trump’s import tariffs.

Worldwide, the VW Group delivered 2.27 million vehicles across all drive types and brands in the second quarter (+1.2%). 248,700 BEVs means an electric car share of 11%. Calculated for the first half of the year, with a total of 4.4 million deliveries (+1.3%) and 465,500 electric vehicles, this equates to 10.6% of the total.

A year ago, electric cars accounted for just 7%.VW also delivered 192,300 plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) in the first half of the year, representing a 41% increase over the same period last year.

By make

Volkswagen Passenger Cars recorded the most deliveries among the brands, despite a slight 2.8% year-on-year decline in deliveries to 97,500 vehicles in the second quarter.

At Skoda, the start of deliveries of the Elroq e-SUV and the facelift of the Enyaq are likely to have had a noticeable impact. The Czechs saw a whopping 196% increase in EV sales, from 15,500 to 46,000 electric cars delivered in Q2.

Seat/Cupra (19,000 BEVs, +67.2%) and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles (14,800 BEVs, +94.2%) also contributed to the 31.5% growth in the Core brand group.

The Progressive and Sport Luxury brand groups have a simpler structure. In the Progressive segment (Audi, Bentley, and Lamborghini), only the Ingolstadt-based company has delivered electric cars to date. The 55,000 electric cars (+34.1%) all come from Audi.

And the 235.6% increase in Sport Luxury is attributable to the only brand in the Group: Porsche. With 15,800 deliveries following a weak result in Q2 2024 (4,700), Porsche is growing again, thanks to the Macan as its second electric model.

Best-selling models

The aforementioned Macan also made it into the top ten best-selling models in the Group, with 25,900 units sold in the first half of the year, placing it in ninth place. In addition to the Macan, the PPE sister model, the Audi Q6 e-tron (including Sportback), also made it into the top ten, ranking sixth with 36,500 deliveries.

The other eight models are all based on the MEB platform. The frontrunner is, as usual, the VW ID.4/ID.5 duo, with 84,900 units, followed by the ID.3 (60,700) and the Audi Q4 e-tron (including Sportback) with 44,600 vehicles.

The VW ID.7 (including Tourer) and the Skoda Enyaq (including Coupé) are virtually on par behind them, with 38,700 vehicles. With 34,300 deliveries, the Skoda Elroq was beaten by the Q6 e-tron, but is ahead of the ID. Buzz (including Cargo) with 27,600 deliveries, the Macan with 25,900 sales,  and the Cupra Born with 22,100 vehicles.

Margin parity

Selling more electric cars is one thing, making a lot of money with it is something else. At Volkswagen, they want to achieve margin parity between EVs and ICE cars as quickly as possible.

According to Head of Sales Martin Sander, the fact that VW is not yet achieving the same margins with electric cars as with combustion engines is primarily due to the high costs of batteries. “Our declared goal is margin parity, and we are working intensively on this. Economies of scale through growing unit numbers help us to achieve this,” Sander said to the German newspaper Handelsblatt.

“We expect the series version of the ID.2all (to be launched in 2026 – editor’s note) and its other derivatives to be the first all-electric models to achieve margin parity with their combustion engine counterparts, such as the T-Cross,” he added.