The German carmaker is making heavy investments to achieve its ‘Roadmap E’ target.
At the Volkswagen Group’s annual media conference in Berlin, the company's CEO shed light on the carmaker’s intentions to launch the largest fleet of electric vehicles (EVs) of all brands in the world.
Volkswagen currently produces EVs at three locations, and in two years’ time, nine new plants are scheduled to be equipped for this purpose. To ensure adequate battery capacity for this massive expansion, partnerships with battery manufacturers for Europe and China have already been agreed upon. The contracts that hvae already been awarded have a total volume of around €20 billion. A supplier decision for North America will also be taken shortly.
The Volkswagen Group has been gradually expanding its EV range across all brands. Recently in Geneva, the company showcased the Audi e-tron, Porsche Mission E Cross Turismo and VW ID Vizzion. From 2019, there will be a new EV ‘virtually every month’, the company’s CEO claimed.
The CEO also made a point of emphasising that this did not mean Volkswagen was turning its back on conventional drive systems. The company is not neglecting current automotive technologies, including diesels, and plans to invest a total of €90 billion in this field over the next five years.
When Volkswagen’s Roadmap E was launched in fall 2017, the company announced its plans to build up to three million electric vehicles annually by 2025 and market 80 new electric group models. The company claims that this year nine new vehicles, three of which will be purely electric-powered, will be added to the group’s electric portfolio of eight e-cars and plug-in hybrids.
The Volkswagen Group is confident that it has the financial resources for this transformation. In spite of the billions in cash outflows from the Dieselgate crisis, its net liquidity at the end of 2017 remained a solid €22.4 billion.
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