Volkswagen gears up for electric battle

Volkswagen Group is preparing for its electric car onslaught. 

Bloomberg has reported that the company has secured 20 billion Euros ($31b) in battery supplies to feed its future electric car arsenal in Europe and China, with a further North American deal yet to be finalised which could see the spend doubled. 

Volkswagen is also planning on developing three factories to produce its electric cars, one each in Europe, North America and China in the short term.  

The German marque has earmarked about 1 billion Euros ($1.57b) for the transformation of one its German production facilities into its electric manufacturing centre with the desire to produce up 1500 electric vehicles a day, which is more than 500,000 a year. 

It has also been reported that the VW Group wishes to expand on these plans and have 16 factories equipped to produce electric cars by 2022 with up to 3 million electric cars produced annually. 

The VW Group from 2019 plans to roll out a new battery-powered model every month across its multiple brands, with the company's chief executive, Matthias Mueller, stating that Volkswagen plans to offer the world's largest fleet of electric cars. 

Volkswagen will launch its first electric car the I.D. hatch from 2020, followed by the I.D. Crozz SUV and I.D. Buzz people-mover, while a flagship luxury model based on the recent I.D. Vizzion concept will join the line-up further down the track. Porsche's first electic car, the Mission E, is due in 2019.

To streamline the take-up of the brand's electric vehicles the carmaker is also developing an environment for its charging points using green energy. 

When speaking to Drive at the recent 2018 Geneva motor show Porsche chief executive, Oliver Blume, said the company was looking at developing an 800-volt charging network in Australian major cities. 

 “I think in the big cities like Melbourne, Sydney, Perth or Brisbane, it might be a very good or huge fan base for electro mobility. Now we are getting in contact with our Australian organisation to talk with the authorities and so to think about how to manage it," said Blume. 

Blume also mooted potential plans for a Sydney to Melbourne network similar to Tesla's current supercharger network. 

“We also need something for example when you want to go from Sydney to Melbourne,” he said.

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