Volkswagen’s US sales have been hit hard for the first time by the company’s diesel-emissions scandal, as dealers struggled for most of November with relatively few cars they could sell.
The latest figures show VW deliveries declined by 25 per cent in November, in large part because the company couldn’t sell any diesel-powered cars.
Volkswagen admitted in September it used software in its cars with small diesel engines to cheat on US emissions tests and stopped selling those cars. Last month, the company stopped delivering models with six-cylinder diesel engines, including the Porsche Cayenne, after allegations they also used so-called defeat devices.
Diesel-powered cars typically made up 20-25 per cent of VW brand sales.
Shipments to dealers
This is the first month the scandal has seriously hurt US sales for the German carmaker, which used rebates and cheap lease deals to generate a 0.2 per cent sales increase in October. The company is trying to boost production of the petrol-powered cars it is allowed to sell, but it didn’t increase shipments to dealers until the middle of the month.
Volkswagen sold fewer than 24,000 cars in November. In the same month the previous year it had sold over 5,000 diesel models. The sales of other models rose in the US during November, a strong month for car sales. – (Bloomberg)
