The Volkswagen Group wants to be the market leader in electric vehicles by 2025 at the latest.
The company revealed during its recent annual report that it is targeting 1 million electric vehicle sales in 2021, adding that by 2030, electric vehicles will make up as much as 60 percent of deliveries from the automotive conglomerate, Auto News notes.
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This announcement comes shortly after VW confirmed during its ‘Power Day’ event that it will build at least six gigafactories across Europe to secure its supply of electric vehicle batteries moving into the EV future. It is hoped that these six facilities will churn out 240 GWh of batteries per year, equal to the batteries of over 5 million ID.3s in the lowest-range configuration.
The first two gigafactories will be located in Salzgitter, Germany, and Skellefteå, Sweden. The Swedish factory will handle production of lower-volume, higher-price batteries to be used by the company’s premium brands, whereas the German site will produce a newly-designed cell set to power 80 percent of all EVs from the Volkswagen Group by 2030.
This new battery cell will be optimized for easy production and recycling and launch in 2023. These new cells could reduce battery prices for entry-level vehicles by 50 percent and 30 percent for volume-segment EVs. VW Group is also eager to make the leap to solid-state batteries and expects the technology to be ready a few years after this new cell launches.
