VW to spend $50B on electric, self-driving autos over next 5 years

Nov. 16 (UPI) -- German automaker Volkswagen said Friday it will spend $50 billion, about a third of its next five-year spending budget, to focus on electro-mobility and self-driving units.

Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft CEO Herbert Diess said the company has six electric models with batteries but expects to have more than 50 by 2025, Frankfurter Allgemeine reported Friday.

The new investment announced Friday is more than the $38 billion previously announced to support electric and autonomous development through 2022, the report said.

Volkswagen has plans to become world leader in electric vehicles by beating all rivals, including Tesla, in quality and prices.

"One aim of the Volkswagen Group's strategy is to speed up the pace of innovation," Diess said in Wolfsburg Friday.

"We are focusing our investments on the future fields of mobility and systematically implementing our strategy."

"The joint ventures in China are not consolidated and are therefore not included," a company statement said.

Volkswagen investments in China include a $2.5 billion plant in Shanghai, a joint venture to produce electric cars and battery systems.

Friday's announced ramped-up investment in mobility is a clear departure from Volkswagen's previous efforts to offer cleaner combustion engines, which had a costly impact due to the emissions cheating scandal.

The emissions problem started in 2014 when researchers found the emissions levels of several Volkswagen diesel vehicles were higher than what the company had offered. The automaker was forced to pay fines and recall vehicles to modify hardware and software related to the issue.

Volkswagen said Friday costs related to its failure to deliver on promises to limit diesel emissions will continue to negatively impact its cash flow until 2020.