VW managers should drive more electric cars

by

Article menu

VW managers should drive more electric cars-cars

Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess wants his executives to drive more electric cars. He wants to significantly improve the CO2 balance of the company’s fleet of company cars, which has been increasing over the past few years, reports Die Welt am Sonntag. So far, according to Diess, the employees have been on the move in fuel guzzlers that are too fast and too thirsty. The average CO2 emissions of VW company cars are 130 grams per kilometer.

It shouldn’t be, according to Diess, that you want to convince customers to buy economical and clean cars, but to drive heavy SUVs with unnecessarily high horsepower and high fuel consumption. That is not good for the image, and managers should also be aware of their role model function. According to the newspaper, the proportion of electric and hybrid cars in Volkswagen’s company car fleet is currently in the per thousand range. That should change soon, corresponding changes to the specifications in the company car regulation are in the works. A bonus-malus system should make the use of alternative drives more attractive. The changes should come into force by the end of 2019 at the latest.

The announcement by the VW boss at a management event a few days ago did not exactly trigger a storm of enthusiasm among some top managers. From middle management onwards, every VW employee is entitled to two company cars, and lower management is entitled to one. There are no costs for this, apart from taxation of the pecuniary benefit amounting to one percent of the gross list price, not even for fuel or service.

VW managers who want to stick to powerful combustion engines with the new regulation will have to pay for it in the future, according to Welt am Sonntag about the new plans. A final decision on what the new requirements will look like has not yet been made.

Diess wants German cell production for electric car batteries

Diess has also spoken out in favor of electromobility on another front: he would like to set up his own German production of battery cells. “I find it frightening that we have become so dependent,” Diess told Handelsblatt. German car manufacturers are currently still dependent on cell suppliers from Japan and South Korea, which dominate the majority of world trade. China is currently catching up. But Germany had already lost touch with battery technology and “with it industrial mass production” in the 1970s.

With the significant expansion of e-mobility, Germany should not do without its own cell production. By 2025, ten million electric cars are expected to be on the road, with each battery costing between 5,000 and 6,000 euros. “So we’re talking about sales of between 50 and 60 billion euros here,” said Diess. In view of this large amount, it would be good for the German car industry “if we make our contribution”.

Diess spoke out in favor of the suppliers taking over the cell production. “If a manufacturer like Volkswagen were to produce battery cells, a group like Daimler would probably not buy the cells from us,” said the VW boss. Cross-brand production at the suppliers is therefore the better solution.

Sources: Die Welt – VW managers should switch to e-cars // Handelsblatt – advance notice from 21.08.2018

Please follow and like us:
error
fb-share-icon
Tweet
fb-share-icon

Leave a Comment