FRANKFURT -- Sales of Volkswagen Group electrified vehicles rose 30 percent to about 100,000 last year, ahead of the automaker's big electric car push this year.
About one-third of the sales were full-electric vehicles while the rest were plug-in hybrids.
VW's best-selling full-electric car was the eGolf, a battery-powered version of the Golf compact hatchback.
Sales of the eGolf rose 60 percent and the volume might have been higher if there had not been production bottlenecks, said VW Group's sales chief, Christian Dahlheim.
Supply constraints meant that VW could not build enough eGolfs to satisfy the high demand, Dahlheim told reporters during a conference call.
EV push
VW Group's Audi, Porsche and VW brands are launching full-electric cars this year.
The Audi e-tron SUV will be available to order in Europe at the end of the month, with deliveries beginning in March. Audi said it has already received 16,000 advanced reservations for the e-tron, the brand's first purpose-built volume electric car.
Porsche will start sales of the Taycan full-electric sedan this year.
VW brand begins series production in November of the I.D. hatchback, a Golf-sized battery-powered model. It is expected to start at around 30,000 euros in Germany.
Plug-ins
Sales of VW group plug-in hybrid models grew a modest 20 percent last year despite the popularity of models such as the Porsche Panamera E-Hybrid.
One reason was the September changeover in Europe to the new WLTP test cycle, which caused bottlenecks in gaining type approval.
To prioritize the sale of high-volume models, niche cars such as the Golf GTE and Passat GTE plug-ins were temporarily taken off the market.
A VW spokesman said both models will be available once again later this year.
