Volkswagen announces it will no longer develop cars with an internal combustion engine after 2025. The company will focus entirely on developing electric cars.
So says Michael Jost, chief strategist at Volkswagen, in an interview with Germany's Handelsblatt. Because development of car models with internal combustion engines will cease after 2025, Volkswagen is expected to launch its last vehicle with such an engine in 2026. After that, the company aims to completely eliminate fossil fuel engines from its portfolio.
Climate Agreement
2025 is obviously still several years away, but it is a relatively short deadline for a car manufacturer. Most car models are produced over a period of roughly seven years.
Jost points to Paris Agreement - better known as the Climate Accord - concluded in the French capital Paris in 2015. This agreement stipulates the need to reduce CO2 emissions and limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. "We are committed to the 2015 agreement," Jost stressed. However, Volkswagen believes that the goals of the agreement can only be achieved if no vehicle with an internal combustion engine is on the road by 2050. In practice, this means that the last vehicle with such an engine should be sold around the year 2040, while the last car models with such engines should be introduced around 2030.
Convert factories
So, in order to make its contribution to achieving the goals set out in the Climate Agreement, Volkswagen is now announcing that it will stop developing car models with a traditional internal combustion engine from 2025. The move is part of a broader series of measures Volkswagen has taken recently to shift its focus to electric cars. For instance, Volkswagen Group already announced in November that it was converting its plants in Emden and Hanover, Germany, to produce electric vehicles. These plants should be operational from 2022.
Earlier, the company also converted a plant in Zwickau, also in Germany, to produce these vehicles. By 2022, Volkswagen plans to have a total of 22 electric vehicle plants, which it says will prepare it to produce 50 million electric cars.
e-Golf and E-up!
Volkswagen already currently offers several all-electric car models: the e-Golf and its smaller brother the E-up! The e-Golf has a range of up to 230 kilometres and is available from €39,680. The E-up! has a range of up to 133 kilometres and is available from 24,861 euros. Both models are also available for lease drivers with an additional tax rate of 4%.
In addition, Volkswagen has been supplying hybrid models, such as the Golf GTE and Passat GTE, for some time. In addition to a traditional fuel engine, these vehicles also feature an electric motor, which is used to support the fuel engine and reduce both consumption and emissions of the models. These models are especially important in the transition phase to all-electric driving, Jost says.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: Volkswagen (pictured)
