Volkswagen "To Overtake Tesla and Take 1st Place Within 4 Years"…Electric Vehicle Leadership Race Heats Up

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] Volkswagen, the world's largest automaker by volume, announced its goal to surpass Tesla and become the industry leader in the electric vehicle sector by 2025.

On the 16th (local time), Volkswagen held a press conference in Frankfurt, Germany, where it unveiled its global electric vehicle sales targets, investment plans, and profitability improvement measures. Volkswagen stated, "We will deliver 1 million electric vehicles to customers this year" and "We aim to lead the electric vehicle sector by 2025 at the latest."

Last year, Volkswagen sold a total of 380,000 electric vehicles globally, ranking second in sales behind Tesla, which sold 440,000 units. This year's target is approximately 2.5 times last year's sales volume.

To achieve this, Volkswagen plans to invest 46 billion euros (approximately 62.1174 trillion KRW) over the next five years in electric and hybrid vehicles. Through this announcement, Volkswagen solidified its all-in electric vehicle strategy but did not specify a date to cease production of internal combustion engine vehicles, considering differences in regulatory environments by country.

At the 'Power Day' event held the day before, Volkswagen revealed plans to develop prismatic integrated battery cells, applying them from 2023 and aiming to equip 80% of its electric vehicles with these cells by 2030. The goal is to reduce battery costs by up to 50% through the development and internalization of integrated battery cells.

Alongside battery independence, Volkswagen aims to introduce hardware, software, batteries, charging, and mobility services based on a large-scale standardized technical foundation.

Volkswagen will launch models based on the Modular Electric Drive Matrix (MEB) platform, which includes 27 variants, and models based on the PPE platform that supports fast charging next year. It also plans to develop a next-generation dedicated electric vehicle platform by 2025.

Automotive software will also be integrated based on the Volkswagen operating system. The proportion of in-house automotive software development is expected to increase from the current 10% to 60%, enabling the development of autonomous driving and data-driven new mobility services.

Herbert Diess, CEO, stated, "We will become the platform champion in the new mobility world," and added, "The transition to a software-based mobility group will accelerate."

Volkswagen plans to reduce fixed costs by approximately 2 billion euros and operating expenses by about 7% over the next two years, reflecting the market environment impacted by COVID-19.

Volkswagen's American Depositary Receipts (ADR) listed on the New York Stock Exchange closed at $32.75 per share, up 10.05% from the previous session. This is the highest level in about 12 years since August 2009, and the bold electric vehicle strategy is credited with driving the stock price increase.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.