Volkswagen unveils its future strategy. The brand wants to have 70 percent of its supply in Europe purely electric by 2030. In addition, it wants to profile itself as a manufacturer of ‘the best electric cars’.
In the coming decade, Volkswagen will be fully committed to expanding and improving its electric range. Wolfsburg is investing € 60 billion in the whole ‘e-mobility’ story. In a practical sense, this manifests itself in several things. For example, at least one new electric model is released every year. This year the ID5 and ID6 will come, in 2022 the production version of the ID Buzz will appear and again a year later the production version of the ID Space Vizzion will be released. The latter must become the ‘flagship’ when it comes to range. Volkswagen CEO Ralf Brandstätter is already talking about a range of over 700 km. In the meantime, a production version of the ID Roomzz is being released in China. An unknown ID model will appear in 2024 or 2025.
In the meantime, well-known models with a fuel engine will continue to be available. With more and more plug-in hybrid powertrains, these remain relevant, according to the brand. Interesting: the production version of the ID Space Vizzion will not be the successor to the Passat. There will simply be a new Passat, which does not belong in the fully electric range of models. That rumor had been around for some time, but now CEO Brandstätter confirms it.
It is also already looking beyond the first series of ID models. A successor to the current modular MEB platform will eventually arrive. Brandstätter refers to this as ‘SSP’. Project Trinity will probably be a preview of the next generation of electric Volkswagens. Trinity, of which a production version will appear in 2026, will also get the latest technology for autonomous driving on board, but more about that later.
Software and autonomous
Although Volkswagen, with its 70 percent electric cars in Europe in 2030, will not go as far as brands such as Volvo, Jaguar and Ford, it still wants to become ‘market leader’ in the field of electric driving. Volkswagen states that software is extremely important for this. The whole ‘experience’, the functions, the staying up-to-date and the ease of use; it is all due to the operating system. Wolfsburg says it will do everything in its power to get the software up to the highest level. An important novelty in this area are the over-the-air updates, which were previously announced for the ID3 and ID4. Of course we also know that from Tesla, for example.
In addition, there is a focus on autonomous driving. In the coming years, Volkswagen hopes to sell enough electric cars that can create a ‘neural network’ thanks to their software. According to Volkswagen, this should significantly accelerate the development of autonomous driving thanks to an enormous amount of data. CEO Herbert Diess previously indicated that Tesla has a huge lead in this, but Volkswagen hopes to realize this itself as soon as possible. Partly because of this, autonomous driving must be ‘widely possible’ in 2030. As said before, an important role was reserved for the ‘Trinity’. According to Volkswagen, it is able to drive Level 4 autonomously. Then the car can basically do everything itself.