We’ve gone off topic here but some good points raised. I loosely work within the car industry so try to keep tabs on model specific sales figures so thought I’d drop in some data that I follow from afar.
Fundamentally, European Golf (I talk as an overall model here) sales have flopped about 40% when compared to 2019.
Why?
1) Sales of Golf 7.5 were flying when it was cut. Lots of this was down to a healthy European economy (remember that?!) and ‘run-out’ the 7.5 spec being very attractive for the price. Lots were built as stock and flooded into dealers so that VW could use up its remaining inventory.
2) Covid had an effect for natural reasons beyond the shop floor being open.The economic uncertainty and ‘working from home’ changes have meant that the demand/requirement for stock (where VW build 2000 Golfs, in one spec, in blue) has gone; company car attitudes have done a 360 and car rental firms (big players Hertz, Europcar, Avis etc.) didn’t buy new fleets in 2020 because nobody travelled. Prior to 2022, roughly 40% of Golf sales were to fleet buyers.
3) Chip issue - by far the biggest. VW has actually sold less Golfs in 2021 than during the pandemic 2020! Golf 8’s software is very chip dependant even in the most basic of specs. VW dealers aren’t even allowed to order stock any more to make way for customer deliveries being met, thus only the battle-hardened spec-listers (us!!) are buying at the moment. Wolfsburg can barely guarantee that it’ll even build these before 2023, as many (myself included) are struggling with.
4) As others have alluded to, times move on and Europeans don’t love hatchbacks like they once did. The hatchback/SUV market share was 49% : 7% in 2006 but flipped to 35% : 44% in 2022.
The caveat? The Golf is still the European best seller in 2021 and 4th best in the UK. The drop of the Ford Fiesta in the UK (which usually the run-away favourite) just shows how well the Golf has faced the wider market issues. It’ll be killed off by regulation a long time before people lose interest.
