In January 2025, Volkswagen sold 171,900 cars in China, but the majority of them were cars with internal combustion engines. The German brand's electric cars are in less and less demand: in the first month of the year, only 4,552 electric VWs were sold in China. This is 71% less than in the same period in 2024, when 15,828 electric cars were sold. Volkswagen's market share for electric vehicles in China has fallen to 2.6%, despite the overall growth of the electric vehicle segment in the Celestial Kingdom.
The brand's most popular electric model remains the Volkswagen ID.3 hatchback, which was purchased by 2,623 customers in January 2025. However, this figure is more than three times lower than last year. Two crossovers follow - ID.4 X (1,020 cars sold) and ID.4 Crozz (889 units), whose sales have fallen by 59 - 70% compared to January 2024. The new product, the electric sedan ID.7 Vizzion, has been particularly unsuccessful, finding only nine buyers in a month, which is a disastrous result for a company of such a scale.
Trying to maintain its position, Volkswagen offers significant discounts on electric cars, but even this does not help it compete with local brands. For comparison, in January Geely found 28,100 buyers, and 25,700 units of the Tesla Model Y were sold. Thus, the demand for Volkswagen electric cars is several times lower than that of Chinese and American competitors.
The German brand's success in China is largely based on gasoline models, including the Sagitar, Passat and Lavida, which are consistently among the ten most popular cars on the Chinese market. At the same time, experts point out that Volkswagen's main problem is that it does not meet the expectations of young buyers.
Modern electric car customers in China focus not so much on dynamics, handling and build quality, but on advanced digital features: smartphone integration, advanced autopilot capabilities and regular software updates. Instead, Volkswagen's electric models actually ignore these requirements, which leads to a significant decline in interest in the brand.