Volkswagen becomes most profitable electric car manufacturer
Herbert Diess, the director of German automaker Volkswagen, says he expects Volkswagen to become the most profitable manufacturer of electric cars. That ruling is related to an investment of tens of billions of euros announced on Friday.
According to Reuters, Diess said at a news conference in Wolfsburg in response to a question that Volkswagen is expected to become the most profitable company making electric vehicles. Diess did not go into detail, but this expectation is largely related to the announcement that Volkswagen will invest a total of 44 billion euros until 2023 in its factories, electric mobility, autonomous driving, new mobility services and digitalization in vehicles. With this, the company says it wants to accelerate the pace of innovation.
On Friday it was also announced that Diess made an incorrect statement on Monday about the amount of electric cars that Volkswagen plans to make. Diess said at the time that Volkswagen is capable of making 50 million electric cars; batteries would have already been purchased for all those vehicles. However, a Volkswagen spokesman now informs Reuters that it was not about 50 million, but 15 million cars that will be produced over several years on the new platform for electric cars. This probably concerns the MEB platform, which will, among other things, become the basis for the new series of fully electric cars of the ID family. The factories in Emden and Hanover are being converted for these models, so that from 2022 only electric cars will roll off the production line.
Volkswagen also says that talks are underway with the American car manufacturer Ford to reach an industrial cooperation. According to the top of the Volkswagen Group, these talks have been positive so far. According to the German manufacturer, the two companies complement each other well in terms of products and regions. The cooperation between the two manufacturers should mainly lead to the joint development and production of a series of light commercial vehicles. However, the two companies will continue to compete with each other as strategies such as marketing and pricing will not be part of the partnership.