Volkswagen on rocky road, but company to launch big drive for market sales here

Blitz will focus on July registration period in effort to combat negativity

Beset by fallout from electric-car pricing slashing and software glitches, Volkswagen has moved this week to reassure buyers that it has turned the corner on a “difficult” period.

The brand has lost BEV market share to new arrivals, particularly to keenly priced Chinese marques. And it has taken severe criticism over the way its new-car price-cutting (up to €12,500 in some cases) hurt residual values of older models, leaving owners exasperated.

However, at a special briefing earlier this week, the group rolled out the big guns to announce a major push to minimise the lag to BEV-buying on a grander scale.

Before the briefing, the Volkswagen Group Ireland CEO, Pierre Boutin, said that while it has been a challenging period, the company had turned a corner. Volkswagen’s brand director for Ireland, Alan Bateson, said there had been major “repositioning” within the line-up, but believed the sentiment for EVs especially is still there. “At the moment we’re in the chasm, but we’re starting to see a recovery,” he said.

He said the company is pumping a lot of money into a market blitz for the July registration period and into next year.

On the thorny issue of people losing a fortune on BEV trade-ins, Mr Bateson said a relatively small number are affected, and that Volkswagen had reached out to them but “tough and painful” conversations had to be held.

Despite that, he said there is demand for second-hand BEVs, but at a price.

There is no denying that BEV owners who tried to trade in after 12-18 months did not fare well. Most people change after 30 months.

In the main, however, Mr Bateson said that anyone on a Personal Contract Plan (PCP) was protected from a plunge in the value of their car because there is a guaranteed minimum value built into the contract.

The group is lucky in that it has VW Bank supporting sales. Two in three people who buy are on PCP so their future value is guaranteed. The group is now setting the future value higher than previously to persuade current owners to trade-in with them.

That is against a backdrop of a falloff in BEV registrations this year, with just one in five VW registrations a BEV compared with one in three for the same period last year.

With BEVs in the doldrums there has been an increase in petrol and diesel-buying, but Mr Bateson believed the “chasm” to EV-buying could be narrowed with new and better products. Several BEVs have been sold out – that may be due to reduced prices – as a recovery begins. The ID range has been restructured, for example. Mr Bateson said there was a lot of “fake news” on BEVs and that was adding to the confusion and negativity around electrification.

There is no doubt Volkswagen could have handled things better but because it accounts for such a large chunk of the Irish market, the glare of bad publicity shines more acutely on it.

There is a lot happening on the BEV and petrol/diesel fronts. A new T-Cross is just in, there’s the latest Tiguan (an e-Hybrid version can cover a claimed 116km on electric charge only) costing €54,250 and the Golf 8 facelift is on the way. Half a century of Golf is being marked with a special edition which basically gives you a lot of added spec for an extra €500, bringing the price to €37,500.

The ID.7 Tourer pricing will shortly be announced; there is also the ID.3 GTX, ID.7 Pro S and GTX.

And great things are planned for the 75th anniversary of the Beetle. Mr Boutin said there are plans in motion to have the first Beetle bought in Ireland brought back from Germany as part of the celebrations. Volkswagen hopes to have its own-brand insurance for Ireland going into 2025 as concern grows over the cost of insuring a BEV due to the high replacement cost of a battery in the event of a crash.

On the upside, there is a lot of activity and Volkswagen has the financial clout and network volume to generate confidence. But there is a threat from cheaper rivals and the effect of fake news. Shaking off negativity around BEVs generally could mean more corners will have to be turned.