WOLFSBURG (dpa-AFX) - The car manufacturer Volkswagen increased sales of its core brand VW Passenger Cars last year. Compared to the weak previous year, deliveries to end customers rose by 6.7 percent to 4.87 million cars, as the Wolfsburg-based company announced on Tuesday. Head of Sales Imelda Labbe believes the company is on the right track. "We expect the market environment to remain challenging in 2024," she said, "but with our revised and attractive product portfolio, we are in the right position." In previous years, the coronavirus pandemic and supply difficulties for individual parts such as electronic chips had slowed down sales.

In 2023, deliveries of fully electric cars at VW rose by 21.1 percent to around 394,000 cars. Battery cars thus accounted for around 8 percent of total sales. As a mass manufacturer, Volkswagen is therefore not yet as advanced as others - by way of comparison, electric cars already accounted for 15 percent of total sales at the BMW Group last year. The more expensive electric cars sell better, especially in the more expensive segment; the range of affordable entry-level electric cars is still rare on the market.

City SUVs also provided a boost for VW. The overall share climbed to a good 54 percent worldwide; in the USA, four out of five cars sold were SUVs./men/mis