Over the last few years, Volkswagen has made it known that they intend to take the throne as the world’s number one automaker. Today, they backed that statement up by announcing that they will be investing $106 billion towards new models, innovative technologies, and further establishing itself as a global presence in order to take down Toyota as the global sales leader.
In a statement, Volkswagen chairman Dr.Martin Winterkorn says, “We will continue to invest in the future to become the leading automotive group in both ecological and economic terms– with the best and most sustainable products.”
“Development costs will remain high in the future as a result of high innovation pressure and increasing demands on the automotive industry from CO2 legislation. As a Group, we have the expertise and financial strength to continue to extend our technology leadership and to reach our goals for 2018.”
Over the past couple of years, Winterkorn has been one of the major figure heads in Volkswagen’s push to amp up operations. This year, under his watch, Volkswagen is expected tro sell more than 10 million vehicles for the first time in company history.
In addition to that astonishing feat, VW has narrowed Toyota’s global sales lead (through the first 9 months of this year) to 72,000 units. Last year, at the same point in time, VW was down 227,000 units to Toyota. These numbers and meteoric improvement has given hope the People’s Car company, pushing them forward with this latest investment.
[socialpoll id=”2233143″]
4Wheel Online Blog - Automotive News 