#Electromobility

Elke Temme, who leads the Charging and Energy Business Unit with the brands Elli and Electrify America and bundles the Group's global activities on charging infrastructure and energy services within the Group's Technology Division, is stepping down from her duties with immediate effect. For private reasons, Temme is taking a three-month sabbatical and will then be available to the company part time until the end of the year. The new SVP Charging and Energy will be Giovanni Palazzo, who is responsible for the North American DC-charging network Electrify America as President and CEO since 2018. Due to this change he will become chairman of the Electrify America board effective February 15, 2023.

The Volkswagen Group and Enel X Way, the Enel Group’s company dedicated to electric mobility, announced today the launch of their equally-owned joint venture Ewiva, which aims to accelerate the uptake of electric mobility in Italy promoting the development of a reliable and capillary high-power charging (HPC) network across the country. Today’s announcement and opening of the first Ewiva’s premium recharging station in Rome mark the successful continuation of the close cooperation between the Enel Group and Volkswagen to provide a full e-mobility ecosystem in Italy.

Volkswagen AG and its charging and energy brand Elli have reached their next milestone: With 400,000 charging points, Elli is now operating the greatest charging network in Europe, with more than 800 providers in 27 countries. Over the past 18 months, the network has doubled in size by adding about 200,000 new charging points. Elli most recently expanded its network in western and northern Europe by adding the Swedish energy company Vattenfall and the Dutch fast-charging specialist Fastned.

The Volkswagen Group and its battery company PowerCo SE founded in July 2022 intend to accelerate the build-up of their global battery business through rapid expansion to North America. Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume and the Canadian Minister for Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, signed in Wolfsburg today an Addendum to the non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of August this year to identify suitable sites for a cell factory in Canada. The two parties will continue their cooperation in the areas of battery value creation, raw material supply chains and cathode material production which had been established in August. Furthermore, PowerCo and materials technology group Umicore have agreed to investigate a strategic supply agreement on cathode material for North America. In September, the two companies had announced that they would cooperate in Europe by forming a joint venture for precursor and cathode material production.

The Volkswagen Group is driving forward its transformation into a mobility provider and is entering into a partnership with car sharing company MILES Mobility. In this regard, MILES Mobility has acquired UMI Urban Mobility International GmbH from Volkswagen Passenger Cars and with it the WeShare car sharing business and will integrate it into its existing portfolio. Both parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. Also in the context of the new partnership, MILES has ordered more than 10,000 all-electric vehicles from the Audi, Seat/Cupra and Volkswagen Passenger Cars brands, which are scheduled for delivery from 2023. In this way, Volkswagen aims to participate even better in the rapidly growing market for new mobility services, offering greater choice to its customers at the same time.

The Volkswagen subsidiary Elli is offering electric vehicle customers of the Group brands more comprehensive service. The wall boxes can now be purchased from the German Audi, SEAT, Cupra, ŠKODA Auto, Volkswagen and Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge dealerships. Through the new sales channel, Elli is continuing its strategy to offer a customer-friendly ecosystem for electric mobility. The new partner for in-store sales of the wall boxes is Volkswagen Original Teile Logistik GmbH & Co. KG (OTLG).

The Volkswagen Group continued to drive forward its successful global electric offensive. The deliveries of all-electric vehicles were up 25 percent in the first nine months year-on-year. Despite ongoing supply constraints, 366,400 BEVs have been handed over to customers until the end of September, up from 293,000 in the prior-year period. The BEV share of total deliveries climbed to 6.0 percent in that timeframe, up from 4.2 percent in the same period of 2021. China remains the biggest driver with 112,700 BEVs – more than twice as many as at the end of Q3 2021.

Volkswagen AG and the Government of Canada aim to promote e-mobility in the country and to explore opportunities across Canada’s automotive and battery supply chain. This was agreed in a "Memorandum of Understanding" (MoU) signed today in Toronto by Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess and Canada's Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, in the presence of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Both parties will investigate opportunities for Canada to contribute to Volkswagen’s global and regional battery supply chains. PowerCo, the newly founded battery company of the Group, has a central role in these efforts and will drive forward the planned cooperation in the fields of battery value creation, raw materials supply chains and cathode material production in the North American region.

The Volkswagen Group and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M) today announced they intend to expand their cooperation. Both companies signed a Term Sheet on the supply of MEB electric components for Mahindra’s new, purpose-built electric platform INGLO, deepening the Partnering Agreement from earlier this year. The cooperation intends to have a volume of more than one million units over lifetime and includes the equipment of five all-electric SUVs with MEB components. In addition, the two companies will explore further opportunities for collaboration, opening the perspective towards a broader strategic alliance to accelerate the electrification of the Indian automotive market.

Volkswagen is consistently continuing its e-mobility strategy: to kick off its battery offensive, the Group broke the ground for its first cell factory in Salzgitter today in the presence of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Production will start in 2025. With immediate effect, responsibility for global battery business is to be held by the newly created company “PowerCo”. In addition to cell production, the new company will be responsible for activities along the entire battery value chain. Up to 2030, PowerCo is to invest more than €20 billion together with partners in the development of the business area, to generate annual sales in excess of €20 billion and to employ up to 20,000 people in Europe alone.

Partners from the industrial and scientific communities want to jointly prove that the most valuable components of traction batteries can be recovered and reused several times in succession through recycling. The HVBatCycle research consortium has the goal of keeping cathode metals, electrolyte and graphite permanently in a closed material cycle (closed loop). Under the leadership of the Volkswagen Group, TANIOBIS GmbH, J. Schmalz GmbH and Viscom AG are working together with researchers from RWTH Aachen University, TU Braunschweig and the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films (IST) for three years to research and develop the necessary processes. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

Volkswagen and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M) are exploring the use of MEB electric components for Mahindra’s new “Born Electric Platform”. Both parties announced today that they have signed a Partnering Agreement on 18th May to evaluate the scope of collaboration. Mahindra intends to equip its “Born Electric Platform” with MEB electric components such as electric motors, battery system components and battery cells. The Partnering Agreement evaluates the scope of collaboration – it indicates binding rules for the evaluation phase as well as the non-binding scope of supply. The binding supply agreement will be negotiated in a continued constructive and legally compliant way to conclude by the end of 2022.