Volkswagen will invest a total of 34 billion euros between now and 2022 in the development of electric and self-driving cars. That is significantly more than the company had planned to invest in the developments two months ago.
In September, the Volkswagen group announced that it would invest a total of 20 billion euros in self-driving and electric cars between now and 2030. That plan is now being changed to a shorter time frame and more money; more than one and a half times as much money goes into it in less than half the time. In addition to autonomous and electrically driving models, the money will also go to ‘digitization and new mobility services’. With the plans, Volkswagen wants to be the world leader in electric driving by 2025.
However, the group of companies, which consists of Volkswagen but also Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini and Škoda, does not want to ignore the existing vehicles with combustion engines. The group is ‘confident’ that it manages to balance priorities. In the short term, Volkswagen will continue to monetize diesel and petrol cars and in the long term, by 2030, all 300 models of the group should have at least an electric variant.
In addition to EUR 34 billion for the development of new technologies, the group is also investing EUR 50 billion in purchasing the necessary batteries to power the equipment. In the future, the Volkswagen factory in Zwickau, Germany, will also only produce electric vehicles.