The gap between the production volume of the VW Golf and the Audi A3 has never been so small
- The Volkswagen Golf, which remained the most produced and best-selling car in Europe for several decades, began to decline in 2017, when the Volkswagen T-Roc compact SUV was launched, which took over the engines and dimensions of the Golf to within a few centimetres. This model, produced and sold at 200,000 units per year between 2018 and 2023, certainly took a bite out of the Golf, while the slightly more imposing Tiguan SUV produced between 2007 and 2016 had not really bothered the Golf.
- The second generation of the Tiguan SUV (produced between 2016 and 2023) took a bigger bite out of the Golf, but it was mainly the launch of the eighth generation of the Golf that accentuated the decline of the model. This generation had little success.
- Finally, the launch of the 100% electric Volkswagen ID3 and ID4 in 2020 impacted part of the Golf's sales (around 100,000 units per year) because part of the Golf's customer base was undoubtedly convinced by the electric engine.
- If we add together the transfer of part of the Golf's customer base to the T-Roc and the second-generation Tiguan, as well as the failure of the eighth generation of the Golf and the launch of the ID3/ID4, we can explain the drop in sales of the Golf, which gradually fell from 762,000 units in 2016 to 627,000 in 2018, 536,000 in 2019, 328,000 in 2020 and 255,000 in 2023.
- As a result, the Golf has come close to the figures recorded in Europe by its Premium version, the Audi A3, which has indeed fallen by half between 2016 and 2021, going from 300,000 to 150,000 units per year, but this 50% drop is much lower than that recorded by the Golf, which reached almost 75% during the same period (a loss of 555,000 units). In 2023, the Audi A3 was produced at 172,000 units.