Volkswagen has outlined its plan for increasing sales of electric vehicles in the coming years, and it’s an ambitious one to say the least: the German automotive giant wants to have sold 150,000 electrified vehicles by 2020, and pass the 1 million mark by 2025.
Objectives
Volkswagen has invested some $7 billion to develop electrified vehicles, and development of the first models is now moving into full gear. Within two years, the company wants to have sold 150,000 units of its electrified models, and surpass 1 million units five years after that.
The diesel-engine emissions scandal that erupted in September 2015 has certainly provided the automotive giant with the impetus to undertake this transformation, but it’s also clear that sooner or later, VW would have ended up in the same place: emissions standards are getting increasingly severe across the planet, nowhere more so than in Europe and in China, where Volkswagen is particularly present.
A first vehicle
The VW-branded electric model to come out of the company’s initiative will be the ID Hatchback, to be sold only in Europe. It will be followed by an electric SUV, also carrying the ID designation. Might as well get used to those letters, in fact, as they will be used to define the electric-vehicle range produced by Volkswagen. Between them, these vehicles should account for 100,000 of the 150,000 units the manufacturer wants to move by the 2020 target date.
And, true to its vocation on the marketplace, Volkswagen is sounding a reassuring note regarding the pricing that will be given all of its ID models. The company is promising to keep them affordable so that they are accessible to as many consumers as possible.
The head of Volkswagen’s E-Mobility division, Christian Senger, says that the ID will prove to be a turning point in terms of technological development, as it will be fully interconnected, all while being user-friendly and, above all, affordable.
Four concepts
Up to now, the company has presented four electric concepts in public: the ID Hatchback, the ID Crozz SUV, the ID Buzz (a modernized version of the famed microbus) and its ID Buzz Cargo variant, and the ID Vizzion, an autonomous driving-focused sedan that debuted in Geneva this year. The company has not confirmed it will produce all of those commercially, but it does plan to use the technologies being developed for them in production models down the road.
Our photo gallery of the Volkswagen ID Buzz
VW says that each of the ID models produced by 2020 will have a battery range of at least 300 km, and that some might reach as high as 550 km. The company also claims to have succeeded in improving charging capacity to reach 125 kW, which is unprecedented in the industry.
