Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess is still optimistic that his company will be able to take on Tesla and become the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles (EVs) by the middle of the decade.
Speaking at the FT Future of the Car 2022 conference on Monday, Diess said they won’t give up in what will be a “tight race” to overtake Tesla by 2025.
Diess also expressed surprise at the pace of Tesla’s growth, which he admitted was much quicker than he had expected.
“It will be a tight race but we won’t give up on it. I have to say we didn’t expect our main U.S. competitor to be so fast and well-prepared,” he said. (via Reuters)
Part of the reason Diess believes VW Group will be able to overtake Tesla, or come very close to doing so, is due to their wider variety of EVs multiple brands (VW, Porsche, Audi, Škoda, etc.).
“I’d say there’s a chance that by 2025 we are first… At the very least we are second,” he added.
Unlike some automaker who claim they will overtake Tesla while currently selling only a few hundred EVs in a quarter, VW Group is already showing signs they have the best chance of any automaker to actually do it.
The company recently announced it has sold out of EVs in the United States and Europe for the rest of 2022. In western Europe along it has an order backlog of more than 300,000 EVs.
In the first quarter of 2022, VW Group sold a combined 99,000 EVs around the world.
Tesla sold 310,048 EVs during the same time period.
