Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess has thrown down an EV gauntlet, declaring the German car maker will upgrade its largest factory – indeed, the world’s largest car factory – to compete against Tesla’s upcoming Giga Berlin EV plant.
During an internal video conference, Diess reportedly said the car maker would upgrade its Wolfsburg factory where it builds 800,000 cars a year with cutting edge EV technology and software departmensts.
The plan is to match Tesla’s goal to build one electric car in 10 hours, Bloomberg reported people familiar with the matter said.
This would be half the amount of time it takes to build a Tiguan or Golf, the news agency reported. The German car maker this year launche dits new all-electric ID series starting with the ID.3 electric hatch, followed by the ID.4 electric company SUV.
It is unclear if this means that VW is planning to build twice the number of vehicles at the factory, or whether it has plans to convert it entirely to electric vehicles as per its Zwickau and Emden plants.
Diess, who yesterday garnered a vote of confidence from the automaker’s board for his plan to push into electric and digital mobility – has said previously that the auto group planned to make 22 million electric cars by 2030.
Volkswagen shares leaped by 8.48% to $US18.30 ($A24.21) on Tuesday following news of the board’s support for Diess and his decision to continue on as chief executive, despite being declined an early contract extension.
Tesla, by contrast, is in the throws of constructing two more electric car factories, in Berlin, Germany and Austin, Texas. It is also about to start making and selling the Model Y at its Shanghai plant alongside its Chinese Model 3 line.
It expects to deliver 500,000 vehicles in total in 2020, and has reportedly offered free supercharging to US buyers who are able to take delivery of Model 3 and Model Y vehicles before the year’s end to bolster final 2020 sales figures.
To achieve the promised 500,000 vehicles sold, Tesla will have to increase production quarter-over-quarter by 17%.
Tesla boss Elon Musk said in an email to staff on Tuesday as reported by Electrek that: “It will be tough but super exciting if we can exceed 500,000 cars made in a single year for the first time in Tesla history. When we started Tesla just over 16 years ago, I never thought we would get this far, but, thanks to your hard work and ingenuity, we actually have a chance of making half a million cars in a single year.”
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.