[ad_1]
Volkswagen plans to rapidly increase its production of electric cars in an attempt to transform itself from an anti-pollution system into a leader in the public transport market.
The company will build 22 million electric cars by 2028, said Herbert Diess, managing director of Volkswagen, on Tuesday at a press conference at the company's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. The company, which currently sells only a small number of electric cars, has set a new target well above the 15 million mark previously planned.
Volkswagen's move is another sign of how quickly the auto industry is evolving and how automakers are assessing what future car buyers want.
But the company is also taking a major risk by making such an important commitment to electric cars. Sales of these vehicles are increasing rapidly, but still represent only a small share of the new car market and the number of buyers who want it remains to be determined.
Until recently, most traditional builders were ambivalent about electric cars. But the demand for Tesla models, despite the financial problems, signaled a larger, though richer, market for battery-powered vehicles. Automakers are also facing growing government pressure to manufacture electric vehicles.
In a few months, Volkswagen plans to start selling its first electric cars designed from the beginning to run on batteries rather than being converted from existing vehicles. Its Audi division will soon begin selling an electric sport utility vehicle, and the company's Porsche unit will start selling an electric sport sedan, the Taycan, by the end of the year. Volvo's Polestar electric car brand unveiled a luxury electric sedan this month.
Volkswagen's increased commitment to electric cars is important because the German manufacturer has a decisive influence on the direction of the global automotive market. The impact of the company on the environment is also huge.
Volkswagen sold 10.8 million cars and trucks in 2018, ahead of the world's largest automaker. Mr. Diess noted that vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen were responsible for 1% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and that this would also change.
"We aim to reduce this to zero," he said. He explained that the company would strive to be carbon neutral by 2050, partly by switching its plants to renewables, and would encourage suppliers to do the same.
Volkswagen brand electric cars will not appear until 2020 and the company has promised that battery-powered models would be close to the price of a Golf, ie under $ 30,000. This type of pricing would correspond to the company's heritage as a ladybug producer, which made car ownership affordable for millions of people in the decades following the Second World War.
As part of its new campaign, Volkswagen is refitting a plant in Zwickau, Germany, and is expanding a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to produce electric cars.
Volkswagen is responding in part to government pressure at home and abroad. China, Volkswagen's largest market, has set quotas for electric cars to be respected by automakers. In Europe, car manufacturers are struggling to comply with the more stringent pollution rules for gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. These standards make electric vehicles more attractive because they do not emit any emissions.
The European rules on emissions have also become stricter after it was discovered in 2015 that Volkswagen had rigged its diesel vehicles in order to cheat the emissions tests.
Volkswagen had more difficulties than other automakers to cope with the more stringent control procedures that came into force last year, which resulted in significant delays in the delivery of its latest models.
"Our complex portfolio meant we were more seriously affected than our competitors," said Diess.
Delays and lower sales in China have reduced Volkswagen sales Net income, which dropped 30% in the fourth quarter, came in at 2.8 billion euros, or $ 3.1 billion, the company said Tuesday.
Adding to Volkswagen's problems, European buyers are avoiding diesel vehicles, which used to account for more than half of all new passenger car sales in the region. Volkswagen has long promoted its leadership in diesel technology, but the emissions scandal has drawn attention to nitrogen oxide pollution from diesel cars and has led some European cities to consider banning them.
Infiniti, the group of luxury cars of Nissan, said Tuesday stop the production of diesel cars, completely withdraw from the Western European market in 2020 and focus instead on the sale of vehicles in the United States and China.
[ad_2]
Source link