All Press Releases

The 10toGO thinkathon hosted by Volkswagen AG and Microsoft Deutschland has been won by the Pina team from Munich, which will receive funding of €100,000 for its sustainable forestry project. Microsoft and Volkswagen will also support the project with digital infrastructure and expert advice. As part of their joint 10toGO initiative, Volkswagen AG and Microsoft Deutschland aim to provide help in kick-starting sustainable, data-driven innovations that address selected areas of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles (VWCV) is consistently and rapidly advancing the development and implementation of autonomous driving. “With the confirmation of the group’s supervisory board for our Autonomous Driving R&D program, we are setting the course for the future of mobility. Autonomous, electric driving will make an important contribution to urban mobility and road safety. Our vehicles are the logical first choice to apply such systems to", explains Carsten Intra, CEO of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, after today's Supervisory Board meeting of the Volkswagen Group.

The Volkswagen Group closed fiscal year 2020 stronger than expected despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Important strategic steps accelerated the Group’s transformation into a tech company at the same time. The Group’s effective crisis management, the rapid recovery of its largest single market China and particularly the more stable premium and financial services business were key to the strong performance and successful containment of the pandemic effects. Sales revenue amounted to EUR 222.9 billion (–11.8 percent), outperforming sales volumes (–16.4 percent). Operating profit before special items (diesel) reached a solid level of EUR 10.6 billion (–45.0 percent) despite the pandemic. The operating return on sales before special items stood at 4.8 (7.6) percent. The robust business model and rigorous working capital management produced a strong net cash flow of EUR 6.4 billion (–41.3 percent) in the Automotive Division. The net liquidity of the Automotive Division could be lifted by 25.9 percent to a very solid EUR 26.8 billion. The Board of Management and Supervisory Board are proposing an unchanged dividend of EUR 4.80 per ordinary share and EUR 4.86 per preferred share. This would take the payout ratio of 29.0 percent close to the strategic target level of 30 percent. Earnings per ordinary share were EUR 16.60 (26.60) and earnings per preferred share were EUR 16.66 (26.66).

The UN Global Compact has confirmed the reinstatement of the Volkswagen Group as a participant. After a five-year break, the Group thereby returns to the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. The main grounds for this decision was the Volkswagen Group’s completely rebuilt compliance and integrity policy as a result of the successfully concluded monitorship supervised by the US Department of Justice. The Group’s ambitious climate protection program was also welcomed positively. By 2025, the Volkswagen Group plans to cut its CO₂ emissions over the life cycle of its passenger car portfolio by 30 percent compared to 2015 and aims to be climate-neutral by 2050. In 2016 Volkswagen also appointed an independent Sustainability Council.

Volkswagen Group further strengthens its capabilities in the development of automated driving (AD) solutions. The Group’s software company Car.Software Organisation will collaborate with Microsoft to build a cloud-based Automated Driving Platform (ADP) on Microsoft Azure and leverage its compute and data capabilities to deliver automated driving experiences even faster at global scale. With ADP running on Azure, Car.Software Organisation will increase the efficiency of the development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and AD functions for passenger cars across Volkswagen Group brands. Volkswagen and Microsoft have been strategic partners on the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud since 2018, which will span all of Volkswagen's future digital services and mobility offerings.

Today, Volkswagen Group Components opened the Group’s first plant for recycling electric car batteries in Salzgitter. As pilot operation commences, the Volkswagen Group takes another committed step towards sustainable end-to-end responsibility for the entire value chain of the electric vehicle battery. The aim is the industrialised recovery of valuable raw materials such as lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt in a closed loop together with aluminium, copper and plastics, achieving a recycling rate of more than 90% over the long term.

Borussia Dortmund, Daimler, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Bank and Volkswagen together with the Freundeskreis Yad Vashem e.V. announced a joint declaration against antisemitism and racism during an online commemoration event.

Wolfsburg, January 21, 2021 – The Volkswagen Group’s e-offensive is gaining traction: deliveries of electric models in the EU including the UK, Norway and Iceland increased more than fourfold in the year now ended to a total of 315,400 electric vehicles (2019: 72,600). The proportion of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in-hybrids (PHEVs) in the total deliveries rose to 9.7 percent (2019: 1.7 percent). The Volkswagen Group is thus the clear market leader in the all-electric segment in Western Europe, accounting for a share of around 25 percent (2019: 14 percent). The main drivers of this development were the Volkswagen Passenger Cars and Audi brands, which overfulfilled their CO₂ fleet targets largely due to the successful start-up of their ID.3 and e-tron electric models. Based on preliminary figures, the Volkswagen Group thus reduced the average CO₂ emissions of its new passenger car fleet in the EU by around 20 percent compared with 2019 to 99.9 g/km in 2020. The emissions of Bentley and Lamborghini are measured individually, which is why they are not included in this figure. In anticipation of narrowly missing the target for the CO₂ pool established jointly with other manufacturers by around 0.8 g/km, the Group had recognized provisions at an early stage to avoid any impact on fourth-quarter earnings.

The Volkswagen Group has strengthened and simultaneously reorganized its quality assurance. To this end, Frank Welsch will become the new Head of Group Quality Management and Strategy as of February 1. In this function, he will report directly to the Chief Executive Officer of the Volkswagen Group, Herbert Diess. Thomas Ulbrich will succeed Welsch as Chief Development Officer of Volkswagen Passenger Cars.

The Volkswagen Group handed over 9,305,400 vehicles to customers worldwide in 2020, a decrease of 15.2 percent year-on-year due to Covid-19. In December, deliveries were down just 3.2 percent on the same month of the previous year, while in the fourth quarter they declined by a total of 5.7 percent. This meant that the Group slightly expanded its global passenger car market share in 2020 amid a declining overall market. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the Group’s e-offensive with a large number of new models met with keen in-terest from customers in the year now ended and resulted in deliveries of approximately 231,600 all-electric vehicles, more than three times the volumes delivered in 2019. Plug-in hybrids were also very popular with customers, who purchased 190,500 units (+175 per-cent). In Western Europe, the share of electric vehicles therefore surged to 10.5 percent of overall deliveries (2019: 1.9 percent).