For quite some time now, we have considered the Volkswagen electrification plan to be the most ambitious electrification plan of any major automaker. However, it seems that Volkswagen wants to push the envelope even more and increase its already loft goals.
Initially the German automaker had planned 50 new electric cars, for a total of 15 million produced units within the next decade. However, Volkswagen has not revised the plan and plans a dramatic increase from 50 new electric models, to 70. Obviously with an increase to the total number of models, the production goal has now increased to 22 million electric cars within the next decade.
So far the cars that the Volkswagen Group have announced include: Audi e-tron, Audi e-tron Sportback, Audi Q4 e-tron, Audi e-tron GT, Porsche Taycan, Porsche Taycan Turismo, Porsche Electric Macan, SEAT el-born, Skoda Vision E, VW ID.3, VW ID Crozz, VW ID Buzz, and ID Vizzion. So far we are at 13 announced models. With most electric cars being produced on the MEB platform, it should be a streamlined process to get more electric cars on the road within the next decade.
Additionally Volkswagen has reasserted its goal of achieving a carbon-neutral balance in all its areas by 2050. It has an interim 2025 goal to reduce its carbon footprint by 30 percent across the lifecycle compared to 2015 amounts.
Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG had the following statement:
“Volkswagen is taking on responsibility with regard to the key trends of the future – particularly in connection with climate protection. The targets of the Paris Agreement are our yardstick. We will be systematically aligning production and other stages in the value chain to CO2 neutrality in the coming years. That is how we will be making our contribution towards limiting global warming. Volkswagen is seeking to provide individual mobility for millions of people for years to come – individual mobility that is safer, cleaner and fully connected. In order to shoulder the investments needed for the electric offensive we must make further improvements in efficiency and performance in all areas.”
Obviously while we should congratulate Volkswagen’s electrification plan, we should remain healthy skeptical. For the time being the company has not put any electric cars in high volume mass-production. We will have to wait until the end of 2019 for the ID.3 (Neo/Hatchback) to see how well Volkswagen will do in large volume production. Even then, we will have to wait to see if they can create/convert 70 electric models within these 10 years. VW puts a lot of faith in its MEB platform that it spent so much time developing for easy EV creation, so we’ll how well that work out.
What do you guys think of this Volkswagen electrification plan? Let us know down in the comment below.
Source: Volkswagen
