Volkswagen of America had its best fourth quarter sales since 2014, up 11% with SUV sales, including the Atlas family of vehicles, its strongest segment. SUV shares of total sales for the year were 58%.
“Our SUVs led the way in giving us a positive close to the year. Atlas sales were particularly strong as the newly designed 2021 model and Atlas Cross Sport brought even more customers to the brand,” said Duncan Movassaghi, executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer, Volkswagen of America.
The Atlas SUV and the Passat sedan are currently built at the Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly plant in Tennessee. In 2022, the plant will add the ID.4 and Buzz all electric vehicles to its production lineup.
For the fourth quarter, the total Atlas family of vehicles sold 31,445 units compared to 21,803 units sold in Q4 2019, a 44% increase. For the year, the Atlas family of vehicles sold 87,362 units compared to 2019’s total of 81,508, a 7.2% increase.
For the Passat, 6,774 were sold in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to 1,153 sold in Q4 2019, a 488% increase. For the year, 22,964 Passat vehicles were sold compared to 14,123 units in 2019, a 63% increase.
Volkswagen of America also announced that in 2020, 72% of their sales were to new VW customers, up from 68% in 2017, with SUVs leading the change over. SUVs accounted for more than 80% of the new customer’s purchases.
