Volkswagen said its investments in digitalization will double to EUR 27 billion by mid-decade, reflecting the Group’s focus on building up software capabilities.
Volkswagen will spend approximately EUR 35 billion on battery-electric vehicles. In additon, approximately EUR 11 billion has been earmarked for the development of hybrid vehicles of existing models, Volkswagen said on Friday.
The Volkswagen Group is pressing ahead with its transformation into a digital mobility company. The Group’s total spend will be around EUR 73 billion on electrification, hybrid powertrains and digital technology over the next five years.
Investments in Capex and R&D for future technologies will be raised to 50 percent from 40 percent of the Group’s total investments of around EUR 150 billion.
Herbert Diess, chief executive officer of the Volkswagen Group, said: “It will be crucial to also reach a leading position in car software in order to meet people’s needs for individual, sustainable and fully connected mobility in the future. To that end, we have doubled our digitalization spend.”
Capital spending on digitalization will total around EUR 27 billion, double the amount set in the previous Planning Round. This includes spending on the Group’s Car.Software organization, which was launched earlier this year. The goal is to build a proprietary software stack, which will be deployed in Audi’s Artemis project from 2024.
Volkswagen said the company’s own share in software is to increase from 10 to 60 percent. Volkswagen will earmark a large share of the funds for digitalization for the mission-critical fields of artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous driving and digitalization of significant business processes.
