Volkswagen said it was confident that it would "surpass" its competitors and become a leader in the electric car market by 2025 as the company turned its attention to battery-powered cars and gradually out of the 2015 diesel test scandal.
 
Volkswagen brand is the largest group of 12 sub-brand one, the brand said to be 2025 to achieve one million electric vehicle sales target.
 
The remarks made the public embarked on a clear path to competition with Tesla, who sold less than 80,000 last year, but promised to achieve annual sales of 1 million by 2020.
 
Volkswagen brand CEO Thieves (Herbert Diess) said: "Tesla can do anything, we can do better."
 
In addition, he also said that Tesla in the high-end market achievements, the public can be achieved in the same scale on the market. "We believe that in this new world we will be a market leader," he added.
 
Volkswagen and Tesla show that electric car ambitions are one of the hot topics in the automotive industry: it is easier for start-up companies with mature technology to expand the scale, or is it easier for a large traditional carmaker to change its way of doing business?
 
"With the mass" MQB "platform or the wide range of automotive architectures, different Volkswagen brands can share parts, technology and assembly order, which will give the public a" cost advantage of transcendence ".
 
"Tesla is the competitor we are taking seriously," he said, adding that Tesla's initial layout is in the high-end market, but they are now invading the general public's market, and our goal is to stop through our new architecture They enter (the general public market). "Teisi refers to Tesla will be put into operation this summer, the price of 35,000 US dollars Model 3.
 
Thieves is in the public known as its "first" annual press conference to say this comment, for an 80-year history of the company, "the first" the word a bit strange.
 
This means that in July 2015 resigned from the BMW executive duties of Tees is the Volkswagen brand and the public group to draw a line. Previously, under the leadership of former CEO Wendell (resigned in 2015), the boundaries between them were often vague.
 
In order to enhance the value of the mass brand, Ties has begun to some of the group-level activities divested from the brand's balance sheet. Under the new management structure, the Volkswagen brand in 2016 operating profit of 1.6 billion euros, rather than the earnings show 1.9 billion euros, and the profit margin of 2.1%, rather than the report of 1.8%.
 
Volkswagen brand to electric vehicle transformation of the challenge is to increase both the electric and internal combustion engine technology investment, but also to reduce the overall cost of the company.
 
"We are expected to have a huge financial burden," said Arno Antlitz, chief treasurer of Volkswagen. "But he said that the increased capital expenditure would be" overpaid "due to savings from the" future treaty " The The "future treaty" is an agreement reached by the public in November last year to reduce the cost of € 3.7 billion by 2020 and to lay off 30,000 employees worldwide.
 
Thiers points out that the public will be a leader through three stages: the first phase from the current to 2020, with a focus on increasing productivity by 25%, achieving at least 4% operating margins to increase corporate profitability ; The second stage is to 2025 years ago, become the leader in the electric car and networking car market, while improving the profit margin to 6%; the third stage is to 2025, the public will bet on the car solution.
 
"The core of the mass program is" dramatically reducing the complexity of the new product lineup, "says Tees. If the public can achieve this goal, then it will be able to the current price of diesel vehicles to sell electric vehicles, so as to obtain profitability. "Our initial position on the entire electric car lineup is to be profitable," he added.