Volkswagen Hybrids Will Not Enter North America’s Car Market

Khodrocar – North America’s auto market is the world biggest market and it has a very close competition with China’s. Major and minor automakers compete with each other in this vast market. They try to unveil their new models in this country and if not, North America is one of their first destinations to export their products. PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles) are not exceptions.

But Volkswagen manager doesn’t agree with that fact. During one of his lastest interviews, Herbert Diess, Volkswagen’s brand boss said: For Volkswagen, it makes a lot of sense to make a specific architecture. We have big volumes now, and we are going toward one and a half and two million cars a year off that electric platform. That makes a lot of sense to have a specific electric architecture. The economies of scale are really getting thin up there, and you can really unleash the potential of the electric cars. We want to concentrate in Europe market.

But according to the reports, American people welcomed the PHEV vehicles in 2015.

In 2015, Tesla Model S was the leader according to sale statistics with 11000 sold, and cars like BMW i3, Nissan Leaf, Fiat 500e, Ford Fusion Energi and Toyota Prius Prime are behind tesla, looking for taking its place in the top.

Also, by the middle of 2017, the Tesla model S (11,000 vehicles), Chevrolet Volt (10932 vehicles), Toyota Prius Prime (9692 vehicles), Tesla X (9100 vehilces), and Chevrolet Bolt (7592 vehicles) were the bestselling American hybrids cars.

Considering the number of PHEV car sales in Unite States, it seems that Herbert Diess is not being honest about the reasons not to come to US market.

Volkswagen is a very large company with credible subsidiaries that has a strong control over the automotive industry and can easily compete with companies such as Toyota and Nissan, and it can profitably sell its hybrids.

But why this company doesn’t want to bring its PHEV vehicles to North America?

If VW brand boss is right, it is very difficult for this company to compete with the automakers like BMW, Nissan and Toyota. But this is almost and impossible assumption.

The second theory is that after the Volkswagen’s 2015 emission scandal, this company is afraid to try its chance and bring its PHEVs to North America and maybe there is something wrong with their new PHEVs, exactly like diesels. 

Khodrocar reporter: Maziyar Jafarieh