Tesla is expanding its production with the new plant in Brandenburg by up to 500,000 cars a year. VW will, however, produce more e-cars even faster, believes Volkswagen's works council boss Osterloh. The US competitor will soon be caught up with the software too.
From the point of view of works council chairman Bernd Osterloh, the automotive group Volkswagen is well on the way to asserting itself against the electric car pioneer Tesla. "We are now in the middle of the electrification of our fleet," said Osterloh of "Welt am Sonntag". He sees good chances that VW can overtake the US manufacturer Tesla in terms of quantities and software.
Osterloh explained with a view to the American electric car pioneer: "If Tesla builds three factories in which you can build between 300,000 and 500,000 cars, then we're talking about a number between 900,000 and 1.5 million." The works council chairman emphasized: "We want to achieve that in 2023, probably sooner." VW has a big advantage with the modular electrical kit, said Osterloh. "We can build any vehicle of any brand on it." Osterloh was convinced that VW will catch up with Tesla's remaining lead in software with its own development bundled in the "Artemis Project".
Tesla is currently building an electric car factory in Grünheide near Berlin. From summer 2021, around 500,000 e-cars are expected to roll off the assembly line there. The complete environmental approval by Brandenburg is still pending. According to Osterloh, electric cars could also be built at the main plant in Wolfsburg. "There is of course the possibility of converting the Wolfsburg site to electric cars," he said. "If the number of combustion engines goes down sharply, we as the works council will demand that we also manufacture a battery-powered vehicle here."
Osterloh believes in the strength of VW.(Photo: picture alliance / dpa)
According to "Handelsblatt", Tesla boss Elon Musk made a flying visit to Volkswagen group boss Herbert Diess when he was visiting Germany. According to the report, a VW spokesman confirmed the meeting of the two CEOs. He gave no information about the content. Diess and Musk value each other and have praised each other in the past for being serious about electric mobility. Musk's plane landed at Braunschweig Airport on Wednesday evening – and VW had brought the new ID3 and ID4 electric vehicles to Braunschweig to present them to the Tesla boss. On the occasion, Musk also took a tour of the airport grounds.
According to the newspaper, Diess already raved at the IAA in 2017 as the then brand boss of Volkswagen: "Tesla will be the most relevant competitor for Volkswagen."
. (tagsToTranslate) Economy (t) Tesla Motors (t) Volkswagen (t) Electric cars (t) Bernd Osterloh