Volkswagen's comeback tour stars 30 electric vehicles and a whole lot of batteries
What better way to help the public forget about your diesels than by never mentioning them in any discussion of future strategy?
If every electric VW resembled Budd-E here, I'd be OK with that.
To anyone who's been following the news since, oh, last September or so, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Volkswagen is not putting much future focus on its diesel vehicles. For the whole of 2016, the brand's increased its focus on electrification, and it has some ambitious plans for its vehicles.
Volkswagen's "TOGETHER -- Strategy 2025" plan is a hippy-dippy-sounding name that encompasses VW's plans for the next 10 years. A big part of that plan involves battery-electric vehicles. In fact, the automaker believes it will launch "more than 30" EVs over the next decade. This, it hopes, will account for 20 to 25 percent of its total sales, totaling some 2 to 3 million vehicles sold. Ambitious.
VW Group, which includes all of its brands, also plans to develop in-house and license an autonomous-vehicle system before 2020. It also hopes to streamline the development processes across its numerous brands, as well as expanding its reach in commercial truck and bus sales, which VW believes will be its most profitable unit in the future.
Of course, it wouldn't be a discussion of the future without using the dreaded m-word: mobility. Volkswagen's looking into several mobility options, including on-demand transportation, while putting greater effort into building partnerships and acquiring venture capital investments.
They're definitely ambitious targets, but selling the company is a big part of these types of announcements, and Volkswagen is in a position where it needs to be as forward-thinking as possible. However, as one journalist notes on Twitter, the world will have to play catch-up in order to make these dreams a reality:
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