Volkswagen won’t be ditching internal combustion quite as quickly as its sister brand Audi, which recently announced that it will go all-electric in all markets except China by 2033, but the Wolfsburg based brand is reportedly forging ahead with a plan to completely electrify its European line-up.
In a recent interview with German publication Merkur.de, Volkswagen sales director Klaus Zellmer said that the company planned to end sales of internal combustion models in Europe somewhere between 2033 and 2035. In markets such as the US and China this will take “a little longer”, Zellmer said, while markets in Africa and South America are expected to take “a good bit” longer due to political and infrastructure set-backs.
Zellmer added that there were markets where EVs would make little ecological sense due to their electricity being primarily generated from coal, and it’s for this reason that the company will allow a certain amount of leeway with internal combustion models. “The freedom of choice always rests with the customer”, the VW exec told Mercur.de.
Like many other carmakers, Volkswagen plans to go CO2 neutral by 2050, and the carmaker is hoping that electric vehicles will make up 70 percent of its sales by 2030.
Rivals such as Toyota are also seeking a balanced approach to their electric vehicle rollouts, albeit with somewhat more conservative estimations. Toyota is aiming for just 25 percent of its vehicles to be fully electric by 2030. Other carmakers such as Volvo and Jaguar are planning to go fully electric by 2030, while Mini has said it aims to achieve this by the early 2030s.
