VWG unveils long-term investment strategy

The Volkswagen Group has released its investment plan for 2020 to 2024, revealing that it plans to spend nearly €60bn on hybridisation, electric mobility and digitalisation in the next five years.

This amounts to slightly more than 40 per cent of the company’s investments in property, plant and equipment and all research and development costs during the planning period. Compared with the group’s last planning round, it represents an increase of around 10 per cent.

The group intends to invest around €33bn of this figure in electric mobility alone.

Hans Dieter Pötsch, chairman of the supervisory board of the Volkswagen Group, said: “We are resolutely pressing ahead with the transformation of the Volkswagen Group and focusing our investments on the future of mobility. This is part of our systematic and consequent implementation of the group’s strategy.

“We will step up the pace again in the coming years with our investments. Hybridisation, electrification and digitalisation of our fleet are becoming an increasingly important area of focus. We intend to take advantage of economies of scale and achieve maximum synergies. In light of the worsening economic situation, we are also working on increasing our productivity, our efficiency and our cost base so as to secure meeting our targets.”

The long-term plan for the next 10 years was also modified. Through 2029, the group plans to introduce up to 75 all-electric models to the market along with about 60 hybrid vehicles. The number of projected e-vehicles will rise to about 26 million, largely due to the addition of a year to the planning period to include 2029. Volkswagen is also planning to sell nearly six million hybrid vehicles by 2029.