German automaker giant Volkswagen will spend $50 billion by 2023 on electric vehicles. The company also would improve cooperation with Ford.
The VW board voted on expansion plans for electric vehicles and more investment. The focus comes after the diesel cheating scandal in 2015. VW violated and rigged emission levels 40 times above permissible limits set by regulatories and was fined up to $18 billion dollars.
The company will retool its manufacturing plants, so that it could increase capacity of electric cars manufacturing. The company will increase productivity by 30% by 2025.
The board decided to lower expenditure on research. The key areas are to increase manufacture of multiple vendors on the same assembly line. The new strategy is to make VW more efficient, more productive and more profitable in order to finance the high expenditure in future and stay competitive.
Labor unions fear that battery vehicles will require fewer workers. A combustion engine has close to 1,400 components, an electric mobile has about 200 components. There are major fears of layoffs if the company completely shifts focus on electric vehicles.
Globally the VW group employees over 642,000 people.