A blue VW ID.4 in a studio
Enlarge / A 2021 VW ID.4, the brand's battery-electric crossover.

Volkswagen, the world's second-largest electric vehicle manufacturer by volume, has sold out of battery-powered models in the US and Europe this year due to supply chain problems.

In the first three months of the year, the group sold more than 99,000 electric models worldwide, but it was hit by a shortage of wiring harnesses made in Ukraine.

In the same quarter, the market leader delivered more than once.

Herbert Diess, the VW boss, said that the company had an order backlog of 300,000 electric cars in western Europe. Electric models will not be delivered in the US and Europe before the year 2023.

We have high order books and an intake for electric vehicles.

Advertisement

He said that electric vehicles are sold out in Europe and the United States. It is really picking up in China.

VW wants to sell a total of roughly 700,000 electric vehicles in the next four years as it tries to catch up withTesla. VW sold just 28,800 electric cars in China in the first quarter of the year, due to the coronaviruses.

VW's target of selling at least 140,000 electric cars in China in 2022, which is four times higher than the same period last year, is complicated by that sales figure. The manufacturer missed its electric sales targets.

The auto industry's sales forecasts have been reduced in recent weeks as the global economy continues to suffer from rising raw material prices and the war in Ukraine.

Bosch, Europe's largest auto supplier, said on Wednesday that its previous estimate of 88 million cars being sold in 2022, probably won't be met due to adverse effects from the corona.

There was a continued risk that the war in China would have a negative impact on business.

The CFO said he was confident that VW's electric business would pick up pace.

The Financial Times is a division of The Financial Times. All rights are not to be redistributed, copied or modified.