Volkswagen Pleased With ID.4’s U.S. Delivery Rate - Happier With Its Conquest Rate

Glance at the green crossover year-to-date delivery chart below and VW appears to be lagging behind Ford and Toyota. While true, there is always more to the story if one digs deeper. There are three main things to know about the VW ID.4’s delivery numbers so far this year.

ID.4 Came Late to the Party
The first thing ID.4 fans should know, and likely do know, is that the ID.4 came late to the green crossover party. Toyota is in its third generation of green crossovers and its newest model, the RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle launched about six months ahead of the ID.4. The Ford Mustang Mach-E’s year-to-date delivery numbers also are for a full year.

ID.4 Has a Solid Run Rate
The ID.4 had the best quarter of sales among the green crossover segment. VW delivered an impressive 6,046 ID.4 from its European factories, across the pond in massively polluting cargo ships, and into the driveways of American green vehicle shoppers in the third quarter. By contrast, Toyota delivered about half that number of RAV4 Primes. VW is the run-rate leader in its segment as far as we can discern from the publicly reported data available.

We’ll assume Tesla didn’t sell many Model Ys in America, since the company has not reported its U.S. deliveries by model, but instead groups models together and reports global numbers.

ID.4 Is Bringing VW of America Significant Conquest Sales
In addition to raw delivery data, automakers want to know which brands the buyer owned prior to the new vehicle they are purchasing. VW is tickled pink that its data shows that fully two-thirds of the folks who took home a new ID.4 last quarter had previously been owners of another brand. The upshot of this is a simple concept - the ID.4 is gaining market share for VW.

12,279 units of any vehicle delivered in nine months of a sales year don’t amount to a hill of beans. However, if VW can build a domestic ID.4 production line for the U.S. market, find the components it needs to outsource to complete the vehicles, and continue its ID.4 momentum, by all indications, the ID.4 will be a significant contributor to the company’s overall U.S. deliveries in about three to five years. As of today, the ID.4 still represents a single-digit percentage of VW’s U.S. sales, which are among the smallest of any brand in the marketplace. One other way to say it is that VW’s ID.4 success is looking brighter, and there is no place for the brand to go but up in America.

John Goreham is a long-time New England Motor Press Association member and recovering engineer. John's interest in EVs goes back to 1990 when he designed the thermal control system for an EV battery as part of an academic team. After earning his mechanical engineering degree, John completed a marketing program at Northeastern University and worked with automotive component manufacturers, in the semiconductor industry, and in biotech. In addition to Torque News, John's work has appeared in print in dozens of American news outlets and he provides reviews to many vehicle shopping sites. You can follow John on TikTok @ToknCars, on Twitter, and view his credentials at Linkedin

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