Volkswagen outlines future plans to 2025

VOLKSWAGEN has released its ‘Transform 2025+’ business plan, outlining its goals for operation into the next decade which include selling one million electric cars per year, expanding its SUV portfolio to 19 models, and making a full financial recovery from the debilitating dieselgate scandal.

Spearheading what Volkswagen is calling “the largest model offensive in the history of the brand” is the expansion of its global SUV range from the Tiguan and Touareg to a massive 19 models by 2020, with seven launched by the end of next year.

So far this year Volkswagen has introduced the Atlas and Teramont seven-seat SUVs in the US and China respectively, as well as the three-row Tiguan Allspace, and across its entire passenger range, ten new vehicles are planned for 2017.

One new model that has been announced for production in the next two years is the T-Roc, a small coupe-style SUV that was revealed in concept form at the Geneva motor show in 2014 that will begin production in August.

Other models in the pipeline are the new Polo light hatch that will begin production in June, the next-gen Touareg large SUV in November and the Jetta sedan in December.

The Phideon plug-in hybrid sedan will begin production in August, and will likely play a big role in being one of the nine new models planned for the Chinese market by 2018, which Volkswagen says will have a focus on “locally produced new energy vehicles”.

The German brand’s move to incorporate mass-market electric vehicles was made clear by its intention to bring the ID family of EVs to market beginning in 2020, which includes the ID, ID Buzz, ID Crozz and one other unnamed EV.

Based on a new EV architecture that will underpin the brand’s future electric portfolio, the ID will be built in Volkswagen’s Zwickau factory in Germany, and by 2025 the brand hopes to be the world leader in e-mobility with one million EV sales per year.

Volkswagen also detailed its progress in other global markets, claiming it has grown at an above-average pace in North and South America and Russia, and in North America it plans to introduce two new models per year until 2020.

After taking a big market share hit in North America in the wake of the diesel emissions cheating scandal, Volkswagen has planned to significantly reduce losses in the region with the goal of breaking even by 2020. That goal applies to all markets that are currently not making a profit.

In terms of global sales outlook, Volkswagen anticipates its revenue will increase 10 per cent this year compared with 2016, with its operating return on sales somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent, with an eye to reach 4 per cent by 2020 and 6 per cent by 2025.

Sales revenue so far in 2017 is at €19b, with an operating result of €900m.

One way that Volkswagen is hoping to streamline its business decisions is by granting autonomy to its regional offshoots, which it hopes will help create faster decision making and more efficient business.

The Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg, which current produces the Golf, Touran and Tiguan, will in 2018 produce an as-yet-unknown product for one of its sister brads, likely Skoda, Audi or Porsche.

Volkswagen has also given an update on its dieselgate scandal, announcing that it is continuing the modification of affected vehicles with more than half of European vehicles remedied, up to nearly three quarters in native Germany.

By the end of the year, it hopes to have all Volkswagen brand vehicles receive the necessary software update.