Home to some of the World’s top car manufacturers, Japan is considering a ban on sale of cars which run purely on fossil fuels, by 2030. The country plans to promote hybrid and fully-electric vehicles instead of fully ICE-powered cars. This decision will boost the country’s aim to cut carbon emissions to 0% by 2050. A formal announcement about this decision is expected by the end of this year.
Once documented, this will make Japan join the likes of the United Kingdom, which has advanced the ban on sale of petrol and diesel cars to 2030. With the change in leadership in the United States, the world’s biggest economies are back at revisiting their targets to reduce carbon emissions and arrest global warming.
Carmakers too are getting ready to restructure their business plans. For instance, Volkswagen Motorsport announced a withdrawal from all Motorsports activities by the end of 2020, in order to focus on developing and making electric cars. Group company Audi too has announced an increase in budget towards developing electric vehicle tech. With its investment planning for the next five years, AUDI AG is pushing ahead its transformation to a provider of networked and sustainable premium mobility: with a total amount of approximately € 35 billion.
Some€ 17 billion, amounting to half of the investment sum, is allocated to future technologies alone. Like the Volkswagen Group as a whole, Audi is reinforcing investments in electromobility. The premium manufacturer has earmarked approximately € 15 billion for this and the future topic of hybridization, thus underlining the key importance of its electro roadmap. The necessary financial scope is created by synergies in the Volkswagen Group – in both the e-platform strategy and in software development.
The total sum of development costs takes account of comprehensive synergies in the Group. For example, the development and implementation of the electric platforms takes place across the brands. Here Audi is developing together with Porsche the premium platform electric (PPE); at the same time, Audi uses the Group technology of the modular electrification platform (MEB).O n the basis of the investment planning, upfront expenditure in the years 2021 to 2025 focuses on the uncompromising implementation of Roadmap E, with a large-scale product offensive for fully and partly electric models. By 2025 Audi AG will expand its e-portfolio to about 30 models, of which approximately 20 will be powered entirely by electric batteries.