Volkswagen is committed to building electric vehicles in the near future, especially to make its clients forget about the Dieselgate scandal. It’s like a redemption song, and most of its factories are going to sing it.
16 locations around the globe are to produce battery powered vehicles by the end of 2022. This was announced by Matthias Müller, CEO of Volkswagen AG, at the Group’s Annual Media Conference in Berlin.
The Group currently produces electric vehicles at three locations, and in two years’ time a further nine Group plants are scheduled to be equipped for this purpose. To ensure adequate battery capacity for the massive expansion of environmentally-friendly electric mobility, partnerships with battery manufacturers for Europe and China have already been agreed.
The contracts already awarded have a total volume of around EUR 20 billion. A supplier decision for North America will be taken shortly.
A number of innovations from the Group were presented last week at the Geneva International Motor Show, among them the Audi e-tron, the Porsche Mission E and the I.D. VIZZION, another member of the Volkswagen I.D. family. From 2019, there will be a new electric vehicle “virtually every month”, Müller said: “This is how we intend to offer the largest fleet of electric vehicles in the world, across all brands and regions, in just a few years.”
The Volkswagen Group has the financial resources for the transformation. In spite of the billions in cash outflows from the diesel crisis, net liquidity at the end of 2017 remained at a very solid EUR 22.4 billion.
