Automaker: VW invests 60 billion euros in electromobility and digitization – Duesmann will head Audi

Production of electric car ID.3

By the end of 2029, around 26 million electric vehicles will be produced.

(Photo: AP)

Wolfsburg The Volkswagen Group increases his Investments in electromobility and digitization, For the next five years until 2024, the Wolfsburg-based car manufacturer will spend just under 60 billion euros. This is what the Supervisory Board of VW decided on Friday at his regular meeting.

This corresponds to around 40 percent of all investments that the VW Group plans over the next five years. This is ten percentage points compared to the planning and investment round a year ago. At that time, the share of so-called future investments was about 30 percent.

“We are driving the transformation of the Volkswagen Group forward with all determination,” said the Chairman of the Supervisory Board Hans Dieter Pötsch. “The hybridization, electrification and digitization of our fleet are becoming an increasingly important focus,” added VW CEO Herbert Diess. That’s why the group is once again setting the pace for future investments.

The VW supervisory board has at the same time the former BMW manager Markus Duesmann As expected, appointed to the new CEO of Audi. His predecessor Bram Schot leaves the company. At Volkswagen, Duesmann will also be responsible for research and development. Duesmann will take up his duties on April 1, 2020.

In addition, with the approval of the Supervisory Board, the company has extended its long-term planning for the next ten years. By 2029, the Wolfsburg car company plans to bring 75 purely battery-powered electric models on the market. There are also about 60 hybrid vehicles, especially the two premium brands Audi and Porsche,

So far, Volkswagen had planned that by 2028 around 22 million pure e-vehicles should be produced. Now there will be around 26 million cars by the end of 2029. In addition, VW will sell nearly six million hybrid vehicles during the same period.

About 20 million of the planned e-vehicles are based on the new Modular Electrification Modules (MEB), which is mainly the brands VW, Seat and Skoda share. For the brands Porsche and Audi The group is also working on a new electrical joint platform (internal name: PPE). On the basis of this kit, it is expected that around six million e-cars will be produced by the end of 2029.

In Germany E-vehicles are manufactured in the Zwickau, Emden, Hanover, Stuttgart and Dresden plants. to Future of Audi works the group did not comment at first.

In Emden in East Frisia, an electric SUV will be produced in the size of the VW Tiguan. The decision on the Construction of a factory in Turkey should fall by the end of the year.

Audi employees are waiting for clear statements

Volkswagen works council chief Bernd Osterloh spoke of “an important signal to the team”. While in other companies in view of declining sales of red pencil is set, increase the VW Group’s investments. “This will secure jobs in uncertain times,” he said. Volkswagen has around 660,000 employees worldwide, around 300,000 in Germany.

Even the head of the influential employee representation of Volkswagen did not comment specifically on the future of the Audi plants. He merely said that Audi in Germany and the VW plant in Bratislava, Slovakia, would also benefit from electrification. The most important Audi factories in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm have been underutilized for some time now. Layers therefore had to be canceled.

Audi employees are waiting for clear statements from the company as to how the plants should be utilized in the future. In Group circles, it was said on Friday that in the future, especially hybrid models should be produced at Audi in Germany.

Stephan Weil (SPD), Prime Minister of Lower Saxony and member of the Volkswagen Supervisory Board, welcomed the increase in investment. “Volkswagen is very consistent with the present planning on the path of electromobility towards carbon neutrality and climate protection,” said the politician. The tightening of the limit values ​​leaves the group no alternative.

More: VW purchasing director Stefan Sommer in an interview about the huge investments for electric mobility, the entry of the group into the production of battery cells and dependence on the commodity markets.

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