VW Group to spend 34bn euros on EVs, autonomous driving and digitalisation  

The Volkswagen Group today revealed its future direction, underpinning its strategic goals until 2025. The Group will invest billions of euros in electric mobility, autonomous driving, new mobility services and digitalisation over the coming years.

According to the outcome of the Group's planning round for 2018 to 2022, which the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft discussed at its meeting today, expenditure totaling more than 34 billion euros (Rs 259,896 crore) are to be made in these future technologies by the end of 2022. Most of this will go into the electrification and hybridisation of all Group models. This marks another step up in Volkswagen's commitment to this environment-friendly drive technology and a move to advance the Roadmap E electrification offensive. When the offensive was announced in September, the Group said it would electrify its entire model portfolio by 2030. 

"With the planning round now approved, we are laying the foundation for making Volkswagen the world's number one player in electric mobility by 2025," said Matthias Müller, CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft. "We are reinventing the car. We are making targeted investments in digitalisation, autonomous driving, electric mobility and new mobility services by providing the necessary funds from our own resources. We are, however, doing so without sidelining existing technologies and vehicle projects, since this is how we will earn our money for the foreseeable future. Given its brands and potential for synergy, I am convinced that the Volkswagen Group will master this balancing act like no other company in our industry."

The Group has optimised its plant and workforce assignment for the challenges to come. In this process, the production network linking the brands has been made even more efficient. The main highlights:

- For the launch of Europe's first series production of electric vehicles on the MEB platform, the Zwickau site will be remodeled into a pure-play e-mobility plant. This will lay a key foundation for the electrification and hybridization of the Group's product portfolio. Other location decisions at the individual brands will be made as the Roadmap E is rolled out further.

- From the end of 2018, the entire Passat family will be concentrated at the Emden site.

- The VW Golf family will be bundled in Wolfsburg from the next vehicle generation onward.

Brazil, China, Russia and North America to be main growth drivers 
The Volkswagen Group expects Brazil, China, Russia and North America to be the main growth drivers in the coming years. On the other hand, the ambitious CO₂targets imposed worldwide present major challenges for all automakers, explains CFO Frank Witter with reference to the Group's strategic focus: "This is why we have to complete the transformation toward producing more electrically powered vehicles – combined with digitalisation, connectivity and mobility services – with utmost efficiency." The planning round does not include the investments of the joint venture companies in China. These companies finance the investments in the Chinese plants and products from their own resources.

At the beginning of September, the Volkswagen Group announced Roadmap E, the most comprehensive electrification campaign in the automotive industry: As a result of this campaign, around one in four new vehicles produced by the Group will be a battery-only electric vehicle. Depending on how the market develops, this could mean up to three million e-cars a year. The Company is planning to electrify its entire model portfolio by 2030. This means that by then there will be at least one electric variant of each of the Group's around 300 models. To this end, the company has invited tenders for one of the largest purchasing volumes ever, with plans to spend over 50 billion euros (Rs 382,200 crore) on battery cells.