Whilst persusing the UK's VW website yesterday, I noticed that only the Golf Life and Golf Style were now listed on the Golf 8 Model range page. This made me wonder if this was just a mid-website update in progress or whether the order list was that long that other models had now been pulled from the VW UK's order books too, not just the Clubsport.
Curious as to whether there was anything on VW's news and communications site on this I thought I'd take a look. Whilst I couldn't find anything on the missing Golfs. I did find a press release from two days ago (28th October 2022) titled "Volkswagen Passenger Cars stays on track in difficult environment". One section gave a few more details on VW's high order backlog.
"
High order backlog continues
The nine-monthly result was bolstered, among other things, by positive developments in delivery figures in the third quarter that showed further stabilization despite the bottlenecks in the supplier industry. At 1.26 million, the number of vehicles delivered between July and September 2022 was 15.3 percent higher than the same prior-year period – with deliveries in September particularly strong (+19 percent). As a result, the Volkswagen brand delivered 3.3 million vehicles worldwide in the first nine months of the year, of which 207,200 were all-electric ID. models (+23.5 percent).
The front runners were the ID.4 and the ID.5, with deliveries totaling 122,600 units. In China, 104,700 ID. models (ID.3, ID.4 and ID.6) were delivered in the first nine months, more than double the figure for the same prior-year period.
The Volkswagen brand’s order backlog remains very high, standing at 700,000 vehicles across all drive types for Europe alone. Volkswagen is working hard on further reducing delivery times for customers and processing the large backlog of orders as quickly as possible."
So whilst it doesn't help reduce the frustration of the delivery times. It's the first time I've personally seen an actual figure stated for the amount of vehicles on backorder (albeit just European orders); gives some scale of the issue. Interesting that the company's electric vehicle deliveries are mentioned in the release, but nothing on traditional ICE. This probably fits with previous discussions on this forum about whether VW are prioritising EV orders in order to not be hit with excessive carbon fines.
Full article available at:
https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/volkswagen-passenger-cars-stays-on-track-in-difficult-environment-15277
