“Good profits despite the crisis”

Volkswagen’s sound annual balance for 2016 encourages the German carmaker heavyweight to devise ambitious plans again - despite the ongoing diesel emissions fraud scandal potentially threatening the company’s survival in its current form, Max Hägler writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. CEO Matthias Müller is confident that VW can become the number one manufacturer of e-cars by 2025, Hägler writes. The carmaker is set to invest about two billion euros in own battery cell production and small e-car development, while at the same time putting aside more than 22 billion euros for dealing with “diesel gate’s” financial fallout, he explains. Müller hopes that “everything stays confined to what is already known” about VW’s liabilities, Hägler adds.

Read the article in German here.

For background, see the CLEW factsheet Dieselgate forces VW to embrace green mobility.