VW Will Join Tesla as an EV Superstar by 2025, According to UBS
Tesla has dominated the electric vehicle market in recent years, holding 69% of the market share for electric vehicles this year and 81% last year. But traditional internal-combustion-engine vehicle manufacturers — not cutting-edge EV makers like NIO and Xpeng — could be heating up to become Tesla’s greatest competitor, says MarketWatch.
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First, Ford’s new Mustang Mach-E took home top honors as the year’s best SUV at the North American Car, Truck and Utility of the Year Awards. Now, Swiss bank UBS predicts that Volkswagen could share a top spot with Tesla as a global leader in EV sales. UBS analysts said Tuesday, as reported by MarketWatch, that the German automaker could catch up to Tesla’s sales volume as soon as next year, stating that the two companies could deliver approximately 1.2 million cars each.
A global ICE vehicle manufacturer with a long history dating back to 1937 and gaining fame with its popular Volkswagen Beetle in the 1960s, Volkswagen Group now owns the Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini brands. The Beetle is also still going strong, with almost 17,000 new cars sold in the U.S. in 2019 (sales figures for 2020 were disproportionately low due to the pandemic), according to GoodCarBadCar.
In 2020, Volkswagen introduced the ID.4 electric SUV with a starting price of $39,995, competitive with the Tesla Model Y. However, the Volkswagen could have a distribution advantage over Tesla’s EVs, as it will be sold through Volkswagen’s 600 dealerships nationwide. In a press release, the company called the ID.4 “the beginning of a new chapter for Volkswagen.”
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UBS agreed with these sentiments in its analysis, calling Volkswagen the “best EV transition story” in the global car-manufacturing space, according to MarketWatch. VW has become the dominant EV group in Europe, controlling between 20% and 25% of market share in the region.
UBS compares Tesla to Apple, while stating that VW is “well positioned for a value proposition like Samsung, a global brand trusted for its high-quality hardware, produced at scale,” MarketWatch reported.
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