The expansion of the purer fleet Electric vehicles should at Volkswagen move faster under the pressure of tougher climate targets. In 2030, 70 percent of all vehicles of the core brand VW sold in Europe should be electrically powered, said core brand boss Ralf Brandstätter (52) on Friday. This means a doubling of the previously planned quota for battery-electric vehicles of 35 percent. The business with data and the downloading of additional functions in the car software should also become a central focus at VW. Brandstätter presented the new “Accelerate” strategy. It will last until 2030. manager magazin had already reported on the core of the plans.
Autonomous cars for the mass market
By the end of the decade, VW wants to have a wide range of self-driving cars on offer. “We are increasing the pace and will change Volkswagen more than ever before in the next few years,” said Brandstätter. With the “Accelerate” strategy, the main brand of the Wolfsburg-based group wants to give digitization a further boost. With data-based business models, they want to win new customer groups and open up additional sources of income.
One main element: The digital equipment of the vehicles is designed as standard in such a way that all possible functions are basically pre-installed and the users can then have them activated depending on demand and driving profile. This should also reduce the previously expensive variety and complexity of numerous different basic variants. Sales manager Klaus Zellmer said it was conceivable that such a model could “bring in three-digit million amounts in the coffers”.
The new strategy is accompanied by a cost program. VW wants to reduce fixed costs by a further 5 percent within three years. As already announced, the productivity of the plants should increase by 5 percent per year, and material costs should decrease by 7 percent. Brandstätter confirmed the return target of at least 6 percent set for 2023. All regions should be in the black for the long term. So far, VW had regularly reported losses in the high three-digit million range, especially in North America.
In addition, new businesses related to the energy supply and charging of electric vehicles are being considered. However, VW is also sticking to the new edition of combustion models and the often controversial hybrid cars.
Spain wants to build a new battery factory with Seat
In view of the EU target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the next ten years by at least 55 percent compared to 1990 levels, a number of car manufacturers have to tighten their own requirements again. At Volkswagen, it was initially stated, among other things, that 300,000 more electric cars of the core brand would have to be built annually in the European home market alone. To this end, the group is converting other plants to electric cars. At least one new electric model should hit the road every year.
Where the necessary battery capacities should come from was discussed recently. There were now reports from Spain about this spanish The state wants to build a battery factory together with the VW subsidiary Seat and the energy company Iberdrola. Industry Minister Reyes Maroto said at an event in Madrid on Thursday that the plant should be built near Seat’s Matorell site near Barcelona. This was reported by the newspaper “La Vanguardia”.
The state wanted to use funds from the EU Next Generation program for economic reconstruction after the corona pandemic for its part of the investments, the amount of which was initially not mentioned, said Maroto. The announcement came just one day before a visit by the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and King Felipe to the Seat Martorell plant planned for Friday. Unions hope that the Nissan plant in Barcelona, which is about to close, could have a new future. A Seat spokesman did not want to add anything to the announcement when asked; In Wolfsburg it was initially said that there had not yet been a decision on the project.
Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess wrote on Twitterthat he will discuss “exciting electric car projects” with Sanchez, Spain could become a center of electromobility for Europe if the EU releases the funds. According to “La Vanguardia”, the project with investments of almost seven billion euros is the largest in the Spanish plan for the development fund. It was initially not known whether battery cells should also be manufactured there and who would provide the expertise.