Volkswagen vows to invest $193 billion in electrification

Volkswagen pinned its future on electrical automobiles and introduced its plans to place 30 new EVs on the highway shortly after its $18.2 billion emissions scandal. Now, the automaker has revealed that it plans to spend $193 billion on completely different areas of its electrification efforts over the subsequent 5 years. In response to The New York Occasions, Volkswagen chief government Oliver Blume stated at a press occasion that two-thirds of that funds will go in direction of manufacturing batteries, creating software program and sourcing crucial and uncooked supplies for its automobiles. 

Blume’s revelation comes after the automaker’s bulletins that its subsidiary PowerCo will construct its first North American battery cell manufacturing unit in Canada and that it’s going to construct electrical pickups and SUVs in South Carolina. The corporate is already producing its ID.4 electrical automobiles within the US after repurposing its Chattanooga, Tennessee manufacturing unit in 2022. However Volkswagen’s electrification efforts are nonetheless behind its largest opponents’, and it is aiming to determine a stronger foothold in North America, as nicely to change into extra aggressive in China. The corporate considers these areas as its two most essential markets — ones it should conquer if it desires to achieve its targets. Volkswagen beforehand stated that it desires electrical automobiles to account for about 55 p.c of its gross sales within the US by 2030. 

For now, the automaker will proceed making fuel automobiles whereas it is working to develop its EV choices with extra fashions, together with reasonably priced ones that value round $26,000. Arno Antlitz, Volkswagen’s chief monetary and working officer, talked in regards to the path the corporate has to take going ahead, although: “We should remodel ourselves right into a know-how and mobility companies group. We have to deal with our platforms, corresponding to our {hardware} for battery-powered electrical automobiles, a unified software program stack, batteries, mobility, autonomous driving.”

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