Volkswagen AG presents its future investments

Volkswagen Group confirmed its prospects for 2020 and disclosed planned future investments despite the economic crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Herbert Diess, CEO of the automotive company, explained in the virtual Annual General Meeting of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft that both in 2019 and 2020, they have taken important steps to become the leading provider of digital electric mobility.

"The transformation is not being stopped by Covid-19, but accelerated by it," he said.

The German group plans to invest 33 billion euros in electric mobility by 2024 and aims to become the leader in the automotive market for battery electric vehicles . 

Another success factor is the company's new operating system VW.OS being developed by Car.Software.Org and used for the first time in the project Artemis of Audi . In it, 14,000 million euros will be invested in the creation of expertise in Information Technology (IT) and autonomous driving by 2024. 

"The fact that the car becomes a fully networked mobility device in the next ten years will go far beyond the transformation of propulsion," he said.

Volkswagen has lived up to its social responsibility , for example by converting a former factory in South Africa into a temporary hospital, manufacturing respiratory equipment and medical masks and donating relief supplies worth € 40 million. They created programs to support partner distributors. With the above, the CEO thanked the more than 670,000 employees who demonstrated their ability during the health contingency.

RAISE STRATEGIC AREAS AND BRANDS

In the commercial vehicle business, the European company's focus is on implementing the Global Champion strategy to take advantage of synergies between Scania and MAN to take advantage of greater efficiency potential.

The Group's Board of Directors is systematically addressing the restructuring of its trucking business, and the focus will be on improving the efficiency of the Munich-based manufacturer MAN . With this, the Group representative announced a possible acquisition of the US truck producer Navistar as an important step in the implementation of the strategy.

As for the electrification of Porsche , the brand has adopted the strategy that by 2025, more than half of new cars will be electrified.

While with Audi , they will seek to be the technical and technological spearhead, so they have started to work on establishing this brand at the top of the Premium competition. 

”The Artemis project is of particular importance. A next generation electric car will be developed and has partnered with Car.Software.Org to develop the E3 2.0 software for it. This software will be implemented throughout the Group ”, he declared.

Artemis will be the Group's first vehicle to use VW.OS, the automaker's new operating system. 

Regarding the Volkswagen brand, they focused on the launch of the first two models based on Modular Electric Drive Matrix (MEB) , which are the ID.3 and ID.4 units, which are fundamental for the future of the company and the achievement of climate objectives.