While other carmakers are pinching pennies and tightening belts in response to austere economic conditions and ever more stringent environmental legislation, the Volkswagen Group is pushing ahead and spending big on its future. At a supervisory board meeting last week, it approved a huge €60 billion (RM275.7 billion) investment into hybridisation, electric mobility and digitalisation over the next five years, taking it up to 2024.
That’s a circa 10% increase from what was planned just last year, with €33 billion (RM151.7 billion) set aside to be spent on electric mobility alone. And that’s not all – the German conglomerate also now plans to introduce 75 all-electric models across its vast armada of brands by 2029, along with 60 hybrids. That’s a rate nearly eight EVs and six hybrids per year.
It’s doing this because Wolfsburg wants to sell a combined 26 million EVs throughout this period, as well as six million hybrids. Out of that 26 million figure, around 20 million will be built on the new Modular Electric Drive Matrix (MEB), on which the company’s first commercially viable electric model, the ID.3, is built. The remaining six million will sit on the High Performance Platform (PPE) of the Porsche Taycan.
The main Volkswagen brand has also confirmed that a small SUV due to be called the ID.4, already previewed in camouflage form at this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show, will enter production at the Emden plant in Germany in 2022.
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VW kenot stop Petrol combustion cars in mesia … becuz petrol RM1.50/liter cheaper then Tnb.
But will VW be honest with the true environmental impact of their EV and hybrid cars? They had badly lied on their supposedly ‘green’ diesel engines, so to trust them again would need a big jar of salt.
(JOACHIM) I notice you are in all the VW pages criticising them? My question is, “Do you know why VW has grown in the last two decades from 5th place to number 1 in the world now?” If you can answer that question, then you will know why VW sales are increasing higher than the global average each year. Until you are smart enough to understand this, I reckon you dont have a valid reason to say anything at all about them.
Meanwhile, proton will be dump by geely by 2029, and rebadge tata cars, or never exist anymore after.
I wonder how much the likes of Perodua and Proton spend on their R&D, which is claimable from the government. I’d venture to say Perodua is the poorer cousin given their 100% badge engineering stance, but Proton isn’t the richer cousin given their poor financial performance. Things are looking up, though…
Based on the Billion RM grant they last received, I would say Proton’s investment into R&D is significant for the company’s size. Usually, grants are only 20-30% of the total investment outlay so what Proton put into the whole R&D is likely 3-4 times more than what they got from the grant.
Perodua? Only achievement is changing bumpers and reskinning Daihatsu cars. No technological R&D was ever done.
LOL. I guess so. From a business POV, it works. But I won’t call them a car manufacturer. Assembler at best.