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Volkswagen plans 22 million electric vehicles in ten years
Almost 70 new electric models by 2028 – instead of the 50 previously planned- Comprehensive decarbonization program for the Volkswagen Group signed off
- Volkswagen Group targeting fully CO2-neutral balance by 2050
- Diess: “Volkswagen will change radically. We are taking on responsibility with regard to the key trends of the future – particularly in connection with climate protection.”
The Volkswagen Group is forging ahead with the fundamental change of system in individual mobility and systematically aligning with electric drives. The Group is planning to launch almost 70 new electric models in the next ten years – instead of the 50 previously planned. As a result, the projected number of vehicles to be built on the Group’s electric platforms in the next decade will increase from 15 million to 22 million. Expanding e-mobility is an important building block on the road to a CO2-neutral balance. Volkswagen has signed off a comprehensive decarbonization program aimed at achieving a fully CO2-neutral balance in all areas from fleet to production to administration by 2050. Volkswagen is thus fully committed to the Paris climate targets.
Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG, said: “Volkswagen is taking on responsibility with regard to the key trends of the future – particularly in connection with climate protection. The targets of the Paris Agreement are our yardstick. We will be systematically aligning production and other stages in the value chain to CO2 neutrality in the coming years. That is how we will be making our contribution towards limiting global warming. Volkswagen is seeking to provide individual mobility for millions of people for years to come – individual mobility that is safer, cleaner and fully connected. In order to shoulder the investments needed for the electric offensive we must make further improvements in efficiency and performance in all areas.”
The Volkswagen Group has set milestones in all areas to be achieved in the coming years on the road to complete decarbonization by 2050. The measures follow three principles: first, effective and sustainable CO2 reduction. Second, switch to renewable energy sources for power supply. Third, compensate for remaining emissions that cannot be avoided. In order to improve the CO2 balance of vehicles throughout their lifecycle, for example, Volkswagen has already made a start on the supply chain. A detailed roadmap is currently being drawn up. There is particularly significant potential as regards steel and aluminum supplies.
The 2025 target is to reduce the CO2 footprint of the vehicle fleet by 30 percent across the lifecycle compared to 2015. Volkswagen is therefore electrifying the vehicle portfolio, with investment in this area alone amounting to more than €30 billion by 2023. The share of electric vehicles in the Group fleet is to rise to at least 40 percent by 2030. The first of the new-generation electric vehicles go into production this year: the AUDI e-tron will be followed by the Porsche Taycan. Reservations for each of these models already total 20,000 units. And electric vehicles will be brought into the mainstream with the ramp up of the Volkswagen ID. Other models in this first wave will be the ID. CROZZ, the SEAT el-born, the ŠKODA Vision E, the ID. BUZZ , and the ID. VIZZION.
In order to support the electric offensive, LG Chem, SKI, CATL and Samsung were selected as strategic battery cell suppliers. In view of the constantly increasing demand, Volkswagen is also taking a close look at possible participation in battery cell manufacturing facilities in Europe. Looking further ahead, solid-state batteries also have great potential. The goal is to enable an industrial level of production with this technology together with our partner QuantumScape.
At the same time, CO2 emissions at all plants are to be cut 50 percent by 2025 compared with 2010. The conversion of the power station in Wolfsburg from coal to gas will reduce CO2 emissions by 1.5 million tonnes annually from 2023 onwards. Audi’s production activities at the Brussels site, for example, are already completely CO2-neutral. The Zwickau plant will not only be the lead factory for the Modular Electric Drive Toolkit (MEB); the ID. built there will be delivered to customers with a CO2-neutral balance.
The MEB lies at the heart of Volkswagen’s electric offensive. The cost of e-mobility can be significantly lowered through partnerships to enable the widest possible spread of the MEB and the associated economies of scale. That makes individual mobility affordable and usable for the mainstream in the future as well. One example of such a partnership is the planned cooperation with Aachen-based e.GO Mobile AG recently announced at the Geneva International Motor Show.
To boost e-mobility further, we will be installing 400 fast-charging stations along Europe’s major roads and highways by 2020 in collaboration with industry partners in IONITY. 100 of these will be located in Germany. That means there will be a station every 120 kilometers. Elli (Electric Life), Volkswagen’s new subsidiary, will also offer wallboxes for charging at home, using green power – initially in Germany. In addition, there will be 3,500 charging points on employee car parks at all plants with further charging opportunities at dealerships.
Volkswagen to spend $50 billion on electric car ‘offensive’ – via Mining.com – Cadence Minerals (KDNC)
German automaker Volkswagen said Friday it will spend tens of billions of dollars refocusing the company on the making of electric cars, autonomous vehicles and new mobility services.
The Wolfsburg-based manufacturer, which plans to have some of the new offering in the market by 2023, said the 44-billion euro ($50 billion) investment in what CEO Herbert Diess describes as an “electric offensive,” includes an imminent partnership with US carmaker Ford Motor.
Both companies are fine-tuning details on a deal to jointly make a range of light commercial vehicles, and Dess hopes the agreement will be ready before the end of the year.
Collaboration between the two firms is viewed as a path to significant savings on research and development, while at the same time delivering big revenue.
Ford makes about 40% of all full-size pickups sold in the US, while VW sells almost 15% of the vehicles purchased in China, the world’s largest auto market.
“Volkswagen must become more efficient, more productive and more profitable in order to finance the high expenditure in the future and in order to stay competitive,” Diess said during the press conference.
He noted that Volkswagen was also “seriously considering involvement in battery production.”
One million e-cars
VW has been actively promoting the electric push by creating global production capacities for the construction of 1 million electric cars. On Wednesday, it announced it was converting three of its plants in Germany to build electric cars, ramping up production of zero-local emission cars ahead of tougher European emissions standards.
The company said it would begin local production of electric-powered vehicles at its facilities in Emden and Hannover in 2022, adding that a plant in Zwickau has already been designated for e-car production.
Recent studies show carmakers will need to add electric cars to their sales lineups to meet the new European Union rules on greenhouse gas emissions from 2021. They also highlight how German carmakers need to rethink their business as the growing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is expected to cost the country’s key auto industry about 75,000 jobs by 2030, according to a report carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute of Industrial Engineering.
Those figures, the institute said, were calculated on the assumption that by 2030, a quarter of all vehicles on Germany’s roads will be fully electric. Another 15% is expected to be hybrids, which combine an electric motor with a traditional internal combustion engine, and 60% of the cars will be powered by gasoline or diesel engines that are more fuel-efficient than today.
A more rapid adoption of electric vehicles could threaten up to 100,000 jobs, the study warned, adding that regardless of the final number, there will be suppliers that simply won’t be able to adapt their business model, especially among small- and medium-sized companies.
While relatively slow to catch onto the ongoing EV boom, German carmakers have stepped up their efforts in the wake of VW’s 2015 “diesel gate” emissions cheating scandal, which tainted the reputation of diesel cars and spurred a push towards more environmentally friendly engines.
BMW recently said raw materials needed for car batteries will grow 10-fold by 2025, adding it has been surprised by “just how quickly demand will accelerate”. BMW plans to offer 25 electrified vehicles by 2025 and, like many of its peers, it prefers nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries or NMC. EV pioneer Tesla’s favoured battery technology –nickel-cobalt-aluminum or NCA – already uses less than 3% cobalt.
Autoblog – Stung by Asian dominance, Germany pours cash into EV battery ventures.
Reporting by Michael Nienaber; additional reporting by Edward Taylor, Ilona Wissenbach, Ludwig Burger and Andrea Shalal.
BERLIN — Germany has earmarked 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) to support a consortium looking to produce electric car battery cells and plans to fund a research facility to develop next-generation solid-state batteries, three sources told Reuters.
The measures, expected to be announced next week, are designed to reduce the dependence of German carmakers on Asian electric vehicle (EV) battery suppliers and protect German jobs at risk from the shift away from combustion engines.
Berlin’s push to shape industrial policy marks a break with its generally “hands off” approach to business decisions and is part of European efforts to forge battery alliances to counter the dominance of Chinese, Japanese and Korean firms.
Ensuring local companies are involved throughout the electric vehicle supply chain is particularly important for Germany as it has become so economically dependent on the success of its car industry.
But Germany’s car battery push could be too late. Asian market leaders are ramping up output and some experts say there’s a risk of a glut that could hinder the establishment of large-scale battery cell production by European newcomers.
For Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fractious ruling coalition, the plan is also a way to show voters ahead of three elections next year in eastern Germany that it can get its act together to help Europe’s largest economy thrive in the electric car era.
“We have a concentration of risk in the automobile sector. The industry is too dependent on the combustion engine,” Deputy Economy Minister Christian Hirte told Reuters. “The government therefore wants to help the sector in its efforts to diversify.”
Hirte said Berlin was in talks with several companies and other governments in Europe to support a battery cell factory.
“There are possibilities for example in the Lausitz region, maybe in cooperation with Poland,” said Hirte, who is the government’s coordinator for Eastern German affairs and for small- and medium-sized enterprises policy.
“One thing is clear: you cannot ignore east Germany if you are planning such mega projects. There is a lot of space and the acceptance among the population is great.”
Companies involved in talks with Economy Minister Peter Altmaier about building a factory include German battery maker VARTA Microbattery, chemical giant BASF and Ford’s German subsidiary Ford-Werke GmbH, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
A spokeswoman for BASF said it would attend a meeting with Altmaier next week. Varta and Ford declined to comment.
Varta specializes in batteries for hearing aids and large storage systems for solar energy. It said last month it was studying the production of large lithium batteries and was in intensive discussions with relevant market actors.
TOO LATE?
Volkswagen’s supervisory board is due to discuss its electric car and battery cell strategy at a meeting on Nov. 16. The German carmaker has said in the past that it was studying battery cell production at its plant in Salzgitter.
A source told Reuters on Thursday that the board would discuss a far-reaching alliance with South Korean battery cell maker SK Innovation.
Some analysts say Europe is already too far behind in the race with Asian firms, at least with the current technology.
Boston Consulting Group (BCG), for example, has estimated global battery cell production capacity will exceed demand by about 40 percent in 2021, exerting massive pressure on prices and making it hard for new entrants to make money.
South Korea’s LG Chem is already supplying some German carmakers with EV batteries made in Poland while Samsung SDI Co and SK Innovation are planning factories in Hungary.
The announcement by the world’s biggest EV battery maker — China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) — that it would build its first European plant in eastern Germany and has struck a deal with German carmaker BMW has been welcomed by the government.
But Merkel told business leaders it was “extremely important” Germany also develops its own battery cell capacity to secure the country’s role in the car industry.
For years, German car bosses have been reluctant to push ahead with electric cars, instead focusing on diesel engines. But they now face a challenge to make combustion engines comply with tougher emissions rules introduced following the emissions cheating scandal that engulfed Volkswagen.
Despite BCG’s predictions of a glut, analysts at consultants McKinsey & Company and Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute say there will be room for European newcomers as demand is likely to outstrip supply when automakers ramp up EV production.
German carmakers have warned, however, that jobs could disappear — because it takes less time to build electric cars and as positions shift overseas to foreign battery makers.
Germany’s VDA auto industry association has said a ban on combustion engine-powered vehicles in 2030 would threaten 436,000 jobs at car companies and their suppliers.
“Battery cells are a key technology and an important part of the value chain. That’s why we want to locate this in Germany,” Hirte said.
EUROPEAN ALLIANCE
Recognizing the importance of a homegrown battery industry for jobs and profits, the European Commission launched its own European Battery Alliance (EBA) in 2017 but Sweden’s Northvolt is seen as the only serious contender to emerge so far.
As part of Berlin’s push, Economy Minister Altmaier is talking to German and European companies as well as neighboring countries to try to join forces. He is coordinating his efforts with Brussels to resolve any state aid and antitrust issues.
“In a few years, Europe will have a competitive battery cell sector that can survive without state aid,” Altmaier said in September after meeting the E.U.’s Vice-President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic, who has been the driving force behind the EBA.
Altmaier is expected to announce more details of his battery cells plan during a two-day conference in Berlin starting on Nov. 12 that will be attended by Sefcovic.
The billion euros earmarked for a German battery cells consortium would help establish a first factory, probably in western Germany, two sources familiar with the plans said.
Berlin is also willing to support a second plant, possibly in the Lausitz region near the German-Polish border where two of the regional elections in 2019 will take place, they said.
An Economy Ministry spokeswoman said Altmaier was in talks with all relevant parties and no decisions had been made.
In addition, the government wants to spend up to 500 million euros to co-finance a research factory to help put German companies ahead of the curve when solid-state batteries are ready for the mass market, another source told Reuters.
Lithium-ion batteries are likely to be overtaken in a matter of years by solid-state technology that is expected to produce cheaper batteries with higher energy density.
The location of the research factory has not been decided and the government is about to start a tender process in which authorities and firms can pitch for the site, the source said.
A Science Ministry spokesman said the government was supporting efforts to develop solid state batteries by bringing together leading research institutes with the private sector.
Companies involved in the network, known as FestBatt, include Varta, BASF, Volkswagen, BMW, car parts maker Continental, conglomerate Thyssenkrupp, carbon fiber specialist SGL Carbon, Belgian materials firm Umicore, Coperion and Heraeus, the spokesman said.
For now, German carmakers are sourcing battery cells predominantly from Asian suppliers such as CATL, LG Chem and Samsung SDI although BMW has struck a partnership with Northvolt.
Underlining the uphill battle German firms face, one of the world’s biggest automotive suppliers, Bosch, has opted out of making lithium-ion cells, saying it would be too costly.
Hans-Martin Henning, an electric mobility researcher at Fraunhofer, is less pessimistic.
“If automakers boost their electric car production to 10 to 20 percent of total sales in coming years, Europe will need battery cell factories with more than 100 gigawatt hours,” he said, well above the capacity planned by Asian producers so far.
“We’ll need far more battery cells in Europe — and this must happen pretty fast indeed,” Henning said.
The expected shift to solid-state batteries could also make European suppliers less dependent on the rare earth resources largely controlled by China that are used in lithium-ion cells.
“The landscape will change dramatically in coming years,” Porsche CEO Oliver Blume told Reuters. “Europe absolutely has a chance.”
Full article here
Is VW Germany’s Second Stalingrad ?
Germany built better armies, better motor cars, better this and better that, than any other country in the world. Its name had become a byword for quality, reliability and honesty until its major car manufacturer destroys those invaluable assets by being caught red handed in a massive fraud which not only has major financial consequences but has put at risk the health of millions of people by successfully masking for years, the true amount of pollution which VW diesel cars have been putting into the atmosphere.
The fines and compensation which will be heaped on VW, may well see its demise but the whole of German industry will also lose out because “made in Germany” has almost become a dirty word overnight. Which of their other manufacturers have been at it ? The one amazing thing is that VW got away with its plan to cheat on a massive scale. Now it has been caught It has given only a half hearted apology which indicates that it it is running scared of confessing its sins in full.
In order for the conspiracy to succeed, VW needed a whole department to design and manufacture the equipment, to purchase the required parts, to install it in the relevant vehicles, a project which would need its own budget. This was a major enterprise in its own right which could not have existed without close involvement and the knowledge and approval of those at the very heart of the company.
Even worse the German government knew of the fraud months ago and did absolutely nothing, albeit now, it has set up a low level enquiry.
The fraud became official VW policy and the project could not then be stopped without a countermanding order. The order was never given. There was no whistle blower, blowing whistles because that would have meant disobeying the original order approving the project. Germans do not disobey orders, they do not take the initiative without an order approving the initiative. There was no such order.
And that was how Germany lost the war – blinkers and refusal to act without the appropriate order
The sixth Army was the finest fighting force the world had ever seen. It laid siege to Stalingrad in the depths of a Russian winter but no order was ever issued for it to be supplied with winter clothing despite temperatures falling as low as minus 60C. Not surprisingly, (except to the German high command) the troops froze to death. Von Paulus never received an order to save his men, 300,000 of them, by breaking out of the Russian encirclement and heading for the relief column only 50 kilometres away. So he refused to take matters into his own hands and order the break out. He condemned his own army. In the end only 6,000 men out of the original 300,000 survived and returned to Germany.
Plus ca change.