A few hours after Elon Musk berated analysts for what he perceived as unimaginative questions, Volkswagen has said it was writing a cheque for batteries that almost match Tesla’s entire market value.
VW has awarded €40bn in contracts to battery producers, double from just a few weeks ago. The deals take the German manufacturer within striking distance of its target to lock down €50bn in supplies. By 2025, VW plans to sell as many as three million all-electric cars per year, CEO Herbert Diess told investors on Thursday at the annual shareholder meeting in Berlin.
While Musk has perfected the role as industry iconoclast, he’s finding himself increasingly on the defensive as investors probe Tesla’s finances and established manufacturers from Daimler to VW push aggressively into his niche. VW makes more cars in four days than Tesla does in a year, and is harnessing its immense financial and engineering firepower to make up for ground lost in a self-inflicted diesel-cheating scandal.
“I could not be more bullish on German premium luxury business,” Mike Jackson, CEO of US dealership chain AutoNation, said on a conference call this week. “They have the best pipeline I’ve ever seen.”
The battery investment by VW — the world’s largest car maker with Porsche, Audi and Bentley under its umbrella — was prompted in part by the manufacturer’s own missteps. European diesel sales have fallen off rapidly since VW admitted cheating on emissions tests in 2015, forcing car makers in the market to accelerate their roll-out of electrified vehicles in order to meet coming EU carbon-dioxide limits on engines.
VW’s announcement comes a day after Tesla CEO Musk renewed concerns about the electric car maker’s ability to hit production targets and conserve cash. During Wednesday’s conference call, he criticised analysts for asking “boring” questions and cut off queries about the company’s capital needs.
“By 2020, we will offer our customers more than 25 new electric models and more than 20 plug-in hybrids,” Diess said. “In just a few years’ time, then, across all brands and regions, we aim to put the world’s largest fleet of electric vehicles on the road.”
Audi
VW’s Audi brand, the group’s largest earnings contributor, will start production of its first all-electric SUV at the end of August, followed by the four-door coupe Mission E from sister brand Porsche next year. VW’s namesake brand will start to roll out the new I.D. range of battery-powered vehicles from 2020, which will be priced at comparable levels to similar combustion engine vehicles.
As car makers roll out their electric line-ups, Diess said there were “clear” need to revive talks over joint battery cell production in Europe to satisfy growing demand. Robert Bosch, the world’s largest car-parts maker, decided against starting its own battery cell production earlier this year citing high investment demands. — Reported by Christoph Rauwald, (c) 2018 Bloomberg LP
