Tag Archives: Sales results

News

Volvo’s EV Sales Rise Despite Overall Decline

If you’re looking for a clean narrative of triumph, Volvo Cars’ first quarter of 2026 isn’t it. But if you’re interested in where the industry is actually headed—messy, electrified, and geopolitically tangled—this one’s far more revealing.

Volvo moved 153,316 cars globally in Q1, an 11 percent drop compared to the same stretch last year. That headline number stings, especially for a brand that’s spent the last decade carefully rebuilding its premium credibility. But dig a layer deeper and the story shifts from decline to transition.

Electric cars are doing exactly what Volvo needs them to do. Fully electric sales rose 12 percent, now accounting for 23.7 percent of total volume. Add plug-in hybrids—nearly identical in share at 23.6 percent—and suddenly almost half of every Volvo sold plugs into something. At 47.3 percent electrified penetration, Volvo isn’t just keeping pace with legacy premium rivals; it’s quietly outpacing most of them.

That’s the paradox of 2026: growth where it matters, contraction where it used to count.

Europe remains Volvo’s anchor, with 95,335 cars delivered—down a modest 2 percent—but EV momentum is unmistakable. Fully electric models surged 21 percent, helping electrified vehicles claim 57 percent of the regional mix. In other words, more than every second Volvo sold in Europe now comes with a charging cable. That’s not a trend; that’s a pivot.

Meanwhile, the Americas are telling a very different story. Sales cratered 28 percent, dragged down by weak consumer sentiment and the cold reality of disappearing EV incentives. Electrified models took an even bigger hit, down 30 percent, suggesting that policy shifts can still make or break adoption curves overnight. It’s a reminder that even the most carefully planned electrification strategy is only as stable as the regulatory ground beneath it.

China, as ever, plays by its own rules. Overall sales dropped 17 percent, but electrified models skyrocketed 116 percent—driven almost entirely by plug-in hybrids, which jumped a staggering 146 percent. Fully electric cars, interestingly, went the other direction, down 26 percent. It’s a nuanced shift that hints at a market not yet ready to go all-in on EVs, despite its reputation as the global epicenter of electrification.

Volvo’s product cadence may soon help rebalance that equation. The upcoming Volvo EX60—still waiting in the wings—has already generated strong customer interest, and its arrival could plug a crucial gap in the lineup. Until then, models like the long-range Volvo XC70 are carrying the load in key markets like China, where flexibility still trumps purity.

Erik Severinson, Volvo’s Chief Commercial Officer, framed it as a moment of resilience rather than retreat, pointing to six consecutive months of growth in fully electric deliveries heading into March. He’s not wrong. The trajectory is there, even if the quarterly snapshot looks uneven.

Still, the broader industry context looms large. Pricing pressure, tariffs, and geopolitical uncertainty aren’t abstract threats—they’re showing up directly on balance sheets. Volvo’s 17 percent drop in mild hybrid and internal-combustion sales underscores a reality many automakers would rather avoid: the old profit engines are fading faster than the new ones can fully replace them.

So no, this wasn’t a blockbuster quarter. But it may be a more honest one.

Because right now, success in the auto industry doesn’t look like steady growth—it looks like controlled disruption. And by that measure, Volvo might be doing exactly what it needs to do.

Source: Volvo

News

Lamborghini Clears €3 Billion Again—Hybrid Hypercars Keep the Bull Charging

If you needed proof that electrification doesn’t dull the edge of Italian excess, look no further than Automobili Lamborghini’s latest financial flex. The Sant’Agata-based supercar maker just closed 2025 with €3.20 billion in revenue—its second straight year north of the €3 billion mark—alongside 10,747 deliveries. In a world of tariffs, currency swings, and economic uncertainty, that’s less “weathering the storm” and more blasting through it at 200 mph with the V-12 screaming.

Operating income came in at €768 million with a 24-percent margin—down slightly, but still the sort of profitability that keeps the luxury sector nervously checking its mirrors. According to CEO Stephan Winkelmann, the company’s secret sauce is discipline mixed with product focus. Translation: build outrageous cars people can’t resist, and the spreadsheets will follow.

Tariffs and exchange-rate turbulence nibbled at the bottom line, but Lamborghini countered with a stronger product mix and tight cost control. The shift toward hybridization—part of the company’s Direzione Cor Tauri roadmap—also brought one-time costs. Yet the brand’s strategy remains clear: hybrid now, full electric later, no compromise on theatrics.

And theatrics matter. The plug-in V-12 Lamborghini Revuelto is gaining traction, while the hybridized Lamborghini Urus SE continues to mint money. Meanwhile, the incoming Lamborghini Temerario—with a new powertrain revving to 10,000 rpm—promises to keep the brand’s signature drama intact. That’s a number that sounds more like a superbike than a production car, and exactly the kind of detail Lamborghini fans expect.

Customization is also fueling the bottom line. Lamborghini says 94 percent of buyers tweaked at least one detail through its Ad Personam program. That means nearly every car leaving Sant’Agata Bolognese is effectively a one-off—proof that when customers spend six or seven figures, they want their own shade of outrageous.

Deliveries topped 10,000 units for the third consecutive year, confirming demand for Lamborghini’s now fully hybridized lineup. It’s a transformation that might have sounded sacrilegious a decade ago, yet the company insists it hasn’t diluted its DNA of emotion, noise, and excess.

Looking ahead, Lamborghini plans to roll out further updates in 2026, with debuts expected at headline-grabbing venues like the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Monterey Car Week. Those stages aren’t just for show—they’re where the brand demonstrates that sustainability and spectacle can share the same stage.

In other words, Lamborghini isn’t slowing down—it’s just plugging in before the next launch.

Source: Lamborghini

News

Skoda Quietly Had Its Biggest Year in Six Years

While the global auto industry is still trying to figure out what comes after the post-pandemic whiplash, Skoda has gone ahead and delivered something refreshingly old-school: real, measurable growth. In 2025, the Czech automaker built 1,065,000 vehicles worldwide, a 15-percent jump over the previous year and its strongest production result since 2019. That’s not a rebound—it’s a comeback.

At the center of it all is Skoda’s historic home in Mladá Boleslav, which pumped out 605,600 vehicles while also assembling 329,000 battery systems for everything from Skoda’s own EVs to other Volkswagen Group products. It’s an operation that now straddles two automotive worlds at once, still building combustion-engine cars while simultaneously supplying the electrified future.

Skoda likes to point out—correctly—that Mladá Boleslav is the only Volkswagen Group factory that builds ICE vehicles and full EVs on the same production line. That’s not just a trivia fact; it’s a quiet flex. It means Skoda can pivot production faster than most brands as market demand swings between gasoline, hybrid, and electric powertrains.

And swing it has.

On the electric side, Skoda’s new Elroq compact electric crossover has taken off with 112,500 units built by January 2025, while the larger and already familiar Enyaq added another 77,000 vehicles. These numbers don’t make Skoda a Tesla-level EV powerhouse, but they firmly establish it as a serious European electric player—not a reluctant follower.

Meanwhile, Skoda hasn’t forgotten how to make old-fashioned mechanical hardware. Across its factories, the company produced more than 1.03 million transmissions and over 500,000 engines in 2025, underscoring that the ICE business is still very much alive inside the brand.

If Mladá Boleslav is the brain, Kvasiny is the muscle. The plant’s output jumped from 248,000 to 301,500 vehicles, a healthy 20-plus-percent increase that signals strong demand for Skoda’s higher-margin models, many of which are built there.

The growth story doesn’t stop in Europe. In India, production doubled to 73,800 vehicles, driven largely by the new Kylaq crossover, a model designed specifically for that rapidly growing market. This isn’t just export-and-hope strategy—Skoda is tailoring its products to local tastes, and it’s paying off.

Then there’s Vietnam, where Skoda has opened a new assembly plant with the Thanh Cong Group. So far, it’s modest—2,500 Slavia and Kushaq models built from Indian-supplied kits—but it’s a classic first step toward deeper localization in Southeast Asia, a region every global automaker is eyeing.

Skoda’s management isn’t hiding its satisfaction.
“For the first time in six years, we exceeded the limit of one million Skoda cars produced,” said Andreas Dick, the board member responsible for production and logistics. And for once, corporate pride actually lines up with the numbers.

What makes Skoda’s 2025 performance impressive isn’t just that it built more cars—it’s what kinds of cars it built. Gasoline, hybrid, and electric vehicles all rolling down the same lines. European volume, Indian growth, and Southeast Asian expansion. Old-school engines next to battery packs.

In an industry obsessed with choosing sides, Skoda is winning by refusing to. And right now, that flexibility looks like a very smart bet.

Source: Škoda