Herbert Diess, the CEO of the Volkswagen Group, believes that the German automaker can sell more electric cars than Tesla by 2025. Is that goal even possible?
When it comes to all-electric vehicle sales, everyone is trying to catch up to Tesla, but the automaker has a big lead, and it’s not slowing down.
With early investments in electric vehicles and making it clear that it is willing to learn from Tesla, VW has been seen as a potential contender. At the FT Future of the Car 2022 conference today, Diess said that VW has for goal to beat Tesla to the become the top EV automaker by 2025 – though he admitted that it will be difficult (via Reuters):
It will be a tight race but we won’t give up on it. I have to say we didn’t expect our main U.S. competitor to be so fast and well-prepared.
Last quarter, the VW group – which includes Porsche, Audi, and others – delivered 99,064 all-electric vehicles. During the same period, Tesla delivered over 310,000 all-electric vehicles.
Electrek’s Take
This is a tough task because Tesla is a moving target. The automaker already has a bigger EV production capacity than any other automaker, and it is adding more capacity faster than anyone.
By 2025, Tesla will likely have a production capacity of more than four million electric cars per year. I’d be surprised if VW can jump from 400,000 to four million units in just three years.
They have the advantage of having quite a few brands and a lot more EV models coming to market than Tesla, but it just hasn’t been able to compete on volume.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the goal of beating Tesla by 2025 also matches the timing of VW’s expected release of the production version of the ID. Life, an electric car that should launch for less than $25,000.
With Tesla seemingly being willing to give up the lower-end of the market, there’s an opportunity for VW to come in and deliver a lot of volume in the large market of vehicles that start under $30,000.
But are they going to have high enough volumes by 2025? I have my doubts.
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