Europe’s largest carmaker Volkswagen expects that by 2030, half of its vehicles sold worldwide will be battery-powered. Thanks to cooperation between brands and technologies, it also increased the operating margin target, ie the share of operating profit in sales, by 2025, to eight to nine percent from the previous seven to eight percent. This follows from today’s carmaker’s strategy until 2030. The Volkswagen Group is also part of the Volkswagen Group.
Volkswagen’s goal is to surpass Tesla by 2025 and become the largest manufacturer of electric cars in the world. Battery electric cars accounted for three percent of Volkswagen sales last year. The group sold a total of 9.2 million cars last year.
“We have set ourselves the strategic goal of becoming a global leader in the electric vehicle market, and we are well on our way. We are now setting the parameters,” said Herbert Diess, the company’s chief, whose contract was extended until 2025 last week.
The increase in margins is proof that the carmaker believes in managing the transition to electric and self-driving cars, Reuters reported. Following the announcement of high first-half profits, Volkswagen said it expects the strong performance of its current business to help finance the 150 billion euros (3.8 trillion CZK) investments it plans to make by 2025 in areas such as batteries and software.
Volkswagen unveiled its targets ahead of Wednesday’s publication of a comprehensive package of European Union climate measures. It could include a ban on petrol cars from 2035.
Volkswagen also specified in its strategy plans to build six large battery plants in Europe by 2030. It has chosen the Chinese company Gotion High-tech as a partner for its planned plant in Salzgitter, Germany. He is considering the construction of another factory in Spain.
The plan published today is the next step for the car manufacturer in an effort to repair its reputation after the scandal of falsifying emission tests of diesel cars in 2015. The scandal has so far cost the carmaker more than 32 billion euros.
With today’s strategic plan, Volkswagen is trying to repeat the success of its March Power Day, which caused a sharp rise in the share price, thanks to which Volkswagen became the most valuable German company for a short time. Since the beginning of this year, the company’s shares have risen by 42 percent, but are losing 14 percent from the March high. According to analysts, the reason is that the carmaker is failing to convince investors that high profits from cars with internal combustion engines can be replaced by profits from electric cars. Today, the carmaker’s shares are falling slightly.
Last month, Volkswagen said it would stop selling internal combustion engine cars in Europe by 2035 and later in China and the United States as part of the transition to electric cars.
The Volkswagen Group owns 12 brands. These include Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini and Porsche passenger cars, MAN and Scania trucks, as well as Volkswagen commercial vehicles and Ducati motorcycles. After Toyota, the Wolfsburg group in Germany is the second largest carmaker in the world.