Volkswagen‘s supervisory board is talking about a five-year spending plan amounting to over 70 billion euros ($82.5 billion) to become leader in electric cars, an individual knowledgeable about the talks informed Reuters.
The board is anticipated to accept the capital and development spending targets on Friday, the individual said. The investments will likely be made in the 2018-2022 period, said another individual briefed on the conversations.
Volkswagen, which is having a hard time to cut jobs and spending at the core autos division and move past dieselgate scandal, declined to talk about the size of the organized budget plan.
Volkswagen has stated it will invest over 20 billion euros in electric mobility by 2030, including expenses to develop more than 80 new electrified models by 2025 and upgrade factories.
At the previous budget round a year earlier, the automaker vowed to cut total spending on factories, equipment and technology to 6 percent of automotive sales by 2020 from 6.9 percent in 2015.
However the emissions scandal has prompted a strategic shift to zero-emission and advanced auto technologies with Volkswagen now vowing to use an electric version of each of its 300 group models by 2030.
The billions of dollars of costs VW is dealing for its emissions and the electric-car offensive has revived stress at the heart of the group between revenues and jobs, and between central control and autonomy for its 12 brands.
Company sources informed Reuters previous month that Volkswagen managers and unions were looking to suppress rivalry from lower-cost stablemate Skoda, move a few of its production to Germany and make the brand pay more for shared technology.
