The Volkswagen Group is one of the world's most innovative manufacturers.
In 2025, the company received the AutomotiveINNOVATIONS Award for being the most innovative automotive group in the world. In addition, the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand received the award for the most innovative volume brand, while Audi was named the most innovative premium brand. This success is based on strong brands, highly qualified teams, pioneering technologies and a deep understanding of customer needs.
To achieve this, the Volkswagen Group is investing at a high level compared to its competitors. In 2025, investments amounted to 34.4 billion euros. This meant that the capital expenditure ratio was 11.8 percent of sales, well above the level of many competitors. For research and development alone, 19.4 billion euros was spent in the Automotive Division.
However, developments in the global core markets, along with tariffs and geopolitical tensions, are weighing on the financial performance. In order to continue to invest substantially in the future, costs must be reduced and efficiency increased. Capital is being deployed in an even more targeted manner – where it makes the greatest contribution to innovation, competitiveness and customer benefits.
For Volkswagen, this is not a reason to lower its standards – but a mandate to use its existing strength even more effectively. Here are the key facts:
How is this achieved? A key lever is the reduction of complexity.
The company will continue to serve all vehicle segments – but with a much more focused range in the future. The currently very large product range of around 150 models is to be reduced by up to 50 percent. In the future, this will result from the gradual elimination of parallel model ranges for combustion engines and electric vehicles. In this way, more innovative strength is achieved per model despite lower investments – also to the advantage of customers. In addition, new digital and AI-supported development methods continue to drive efficiency. These technologies also help to shorten development times and bring innovations to market faster.
One of the Volkswagen Group's greatest strengths remains its platform expertise.
More than ever before, the Group is using platform scaling to bring exciting, highly mature products and technologies to all its brands and segments. This is how the company meets its customers’ needs precisely – leading the way in technology and quality, reflecting each brand’s identity and getting products to market faster.
One example of this is the Electric Urban Car Family. It stands for the Group’s platform strength: The models all use the new MEB+ platform, but they are nevertheless unmistakable and appeal to different customer groups thanks to their clear brand characteristics. Despite sharing more than 80 percent of their parts, they remain distinct in design, character and positioning. This makes innovative technologies accessible to more people and makes electromobility more attractive.
This proves that Volkswagen is not cutting back on investment in the future, but is investing in it in a more targeted manner. The group uses its size, its brand diversity and its technological basis to create more impact from less complexity. Its ambition remains unchanged: The Volkswagen Group aims to be a global technology driver in the automotive industry – with inspiring products, state-of-the-art technologies and a clear focus on added value for customers.
