At last year’s Geneva Motor Show Volkswagen Group announced its ‘Ecological Restructuring’ and now 12 months later the German giant has confirmed things are on-track and moving to the next phase. Impressive stuff by any measure.
Already the Volkswagen Group has 245 models with exhaust C02 emissions under 120g/km with 36 under 100g/km. Now the company has committed to reducing the exhaust output of its entire European new car fleet to 95 g/km by 2020 – the first automotive brand to make such a commitment. That corresponds to fuel consumption of less than 4.0l/100kms across all vehicle segments.
“Now is the time to initiate innovations so that efficient technologies and alternative power trains can be widely used faster. I am convinced this is in the best interests of customers, the environment and Europe as an industrial location,” revealed Volkswagen Group Chairman Martin Winterkorn. The Volkswagen chief also called on the EU to introduce the incentives for environmentally-friendly vehicles which are in-place in North America and China.
More than two-thirds of Volkswagen Group’s planned investment of €50.2 billion over the next two years will be to develop efficient technologies, powertrains, vehicles and environmentally sustainable production. This is part of the company’s goal of achieving a 25 per-cent improvement in environmental sustainability at each of its 100 manufacturing facilities throughout the world.
The bottom line is: automakers don’t need politicians using the industry to score cheap shots…massive investments and the collective might of brilliant engineers are already delivering massive gains in sustainability.
