Volkswagen announced today that it will have the capacity to build up to 15 million electric cars over several years, reported Reuters. The company is investing more than $12.5 billion into electric and autonomous vehicles by 2023. More than 80% of the total will go to electric cars.
The 15 million figure is a correction to a 50 million figure Chief Executive Herbert Diess had mentioned Monday in an interview with Automotive News.
VW (VLKAY) previously said it plans 10 million vehicles in its first wave of reasonably-priced, all-electric cars.
VW plans to have 27 electrical vehicle (EV) models in production by the end of 2022, with cars under the Volkswagen, Audi, and Skoda brands. The first models are expected to come out next year. This is part of the automaker’s strategy to exit combustion engine models after its next generation of cars using the traditional technology, according to Automotive News.
The push sits on the back of the Modular Electrification Toolkit (MEB) system, which has been in development for three years as Volkswagen describes. It is a collection of EV building blocks that take into account the types of axles, drive trains, wheelbases, and weight ratios such vehicles need.
VW has said that it is also building an alliance with Ford (F) and might use that company’s plants to build vehicles in the United States. The company is currently converting multiple of its European factories to build EVs rather than combustion engine cars.
