“You could say: the complete one Volkswagen Group “All of its brands are really being crushed between various problems,” says car expert Sebastian Viehmann, describing the current situation at VW. The problems are adding up. Sales in China, customs problems and unfinished transformation processes to new drives and technologies – all of this is far from over.

The largest construction sites at the VW Group – and their possible solutions

In Viehmann’s opinion, which problems are currently in the foreground depends on the respective brand. The Chinese market has collapsed massively for VW. This is partly due to the fact that VW is far behind when it comes to electromobility in China. The Chinese brands would have acted more quickly in this area. But BYD, Xiaomi and Co. also dominate the Chinese market. Viehmann: “The Chinese brands have become extremely strong, in all respects. The Chinese also like to buy their own brands.” And the well-known European – the “Old Europe” brands – are simply no longer as popular, as the sales figures show.

A solution from the group: production in China for the Chinese market. This strategy is not new at VW, but for Viehmann it is not yet fast or intensive enough. The key would be cooperation with local partners. Currently these would be the car manufacturers XPeng and Rivian. VW could also benefit from cooperation when it comes to software integration. Viehmann basically gives a thumbs up for the current solutions. Despite this, he warns: “Of course you have to see how you can still get the production costs down.”

Previous flagship brand Porsche was particularly burdened

The big problem besides China is Porsche, the company’s former profit machine. According to Viehmann, sales in China and the lack of e-mobility are also a problem for Porsche, as are the high US tariffs. Viehmann is convinced that Porsche is involved in production directly in the USA

According to the expert, the biggest problem at Audi at the moment is the severe delays in the development and delivery of new models – both from the combustion engine and from the electric segment. The flop is an example of this of the “Audi-Audi”a model that was produced directly in China for the local market. The vehicle is missing the iconic four rings. Instead, there is an “AUDI” logo as a trademark. This was not well received by Chinese buyers and the model flopped.

The hopefuls are Skoda and E-Golf

Despite the difficulties, the VW Group is not hopelessly lost. For car expert Viehmann, the new fully electric Golf with its many technical gadgets has a lot of sales potential. Although the competition from Asia is becoming increasingly stronger, Volkswagen vehicles are still firmly established on the German and European markets.