:quality(80)/cdn-kiosk-api.telegraaf.nl/c477cfe0-8654-11eb-a06d-02c309bc01c1.jpg "Audi is no longer developing new petrol and diesel cars | Financial")
Audi, the luxury brand of the Volkswagen group, will unveil its future plans to the media on Thursday. The interview with Duesmann appeared on Tuesday at the same time as the presentation of the final 2020 annual results of parent company Volkswagen and exactly one day after VW announced its ambitions for electromobility.
No profit
Duesmann has announced that it will only adapt the current existing combustion engines to new emission directives. The development of new combustion engines is stopping faster than planned, but according to Duesmann there is hardly any environmental benefit to be gained from combustion engines.
The Audi CEO also announces that the brand will do everything in its power to meet the European Union’s emissions requirements and avoid large fines. The brand from Ingolstadt, Germany, wants to market twenty electric models in five years. In addition to the large SUV e-tron and the expensive e-tron GT sports car, there is also the smaller affordable ‘entry-level’ SUV Q4 e-tron, which will already be presented in April. “It has to be affordable for many people,” says Duesmann. “The car will sell well and provide substantial volumes.”
In 2025, the new so-called Euro 7 standard must significantly reduce nitrogen, CO2 and particulate matter emissions. VDA, the German trade association for the automotive industry, said in November that the new standards mean an end to the combustion engine in practice. Manfred Schoch, chairman of the works council at BMW, warned earlier this year against mass layoffs as a result of the tightening of the emission standards.
Audi has now fully accepted the definitive transition to electric driving. The car manufacturer is following the line of parent company Volkswagen. That announced on Monday that it will invest extra in electromobility.
Nature infrastructure
The focus is no longer just on the production of electric cars, but also on battery production and the roll-out of charging infrastructure. Volkswagen wants to become the market leader in electromobility and is building six battery factories by 2030.
In addition, the car giant from Wolfsburg is investing € 400 million in a European charging network and is entering into various partnerships, such as with fuel giant BP and the Spanish energy company Iberdrola for tens of thousands of (fast) charging stations throughout Europe.
The total Volkswagen group sold 9.3 million cars last year, 15% less than in 2019, with Japanese competitor Toyota relieving the Germans again as the largest car manufacturer in the world. Revenue fell from € 252.6 billion in 2019 to € 222.9 billion last year. In addition, the profit almost halved. The operating result amounted to € 10.6 billion.
Diesel scandal
This means that the profit decline for Volkswagen is not too bad, despite corona and the enormous investment obligation that the transition to electric driving requires. Volkswagen has previously set aside € 6.5 billion for the settlement of the diesel scandal, but the Germans could simply pay this amount from the net cash flow for 2020.
In the first half of the year, the group, like the competition, was hit hard by the impact of the corona pandemic. In the second half of 2020, however, the company recovered and in the fourth quarter Volkswagen was even able to book a plus compared to the last three months of 2019.
Luxury brand strong
However, the performance of the Volkswagen brands differs greatly. In addition, the luxury brands turned out to be the most resistant to corona.
Porsche in particular has done well. The car brand limited the sales loss to 4% and was able to close 265,000 cars last year. Turnover even remained stable at € 26 billion and profit fell a fraction to € 4 billion. Porsche did achieve a turnover return of no less than 15.4%. That is considerably higher than the 5.2% of the entire Volkswagen Group.
“We see that Porsche is an increasingly accepted brand”, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess explains the success of the luxury brand.
Audi sold more than 1 million cars in 2020, 200,000 fewer than in 2019. Turnover fell 10.2% to € 50 billion and profit fell more than 39% to € 2.7 billion.
Standard brands
The standard brands VW, Seat and Skoda had a much harder time. These brands have been hit hard by the impact of corona in both the business and private markets. Seat even saw its profit of € 445 million in 2019 turn into a loss of € 339 million.
The truck and bus divisions also noticed that companies kept their hands on the purse. Scania’s operating result therefore halved to € 748 million. The MAN brand posted a loss of € 631 million compared to a profit of € 402 million in 2019.
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