Press Releases
Volkswagen donates $2.5 million to Australian bush fire relief and recovery
Volkswagen has today announced the donation of AUD$2.5 million to aid in the relief and recovery of the catastrophic bush fires that continue to burn in eastern and southern Australia.
75th anniversary of the liberation – International Auschwitz Committee and Volkswagen remember Holocaust victims
On Monday, January 27, the liberation of Auschwitz 75 years ago will be commemorated throughout the world. During these days, the International Auschwitz Committee (IAC) and Volkswagen will be holding commemorative events in remembrance of the millions of people who were deported, consigned to forced labor, persecuted and murdered during the Nazi dictatorship. On Monday, HR Board Member Gunnar Kilian will be laying a wreath for the victims of National Socialism on the stone of remembrance at Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg plant. In the afternoon, Kilian will be taking part in the international commemoration event in Poland.
WeShare expands in Europe
WeShare, Volkswagen and ŠKODA’s free-floating car sharing service, is to expand into seven further cities in Germany and other European countries in 2020. Prague and Hamburg in the spring are to be followed by Paris, Madrid, Budapest, Munich and Milan in the course of the year. In all these cities, WeShare will be offering an all-electric fleet with a total of about 8,400 electric vehicles. In Prague and Budapest, WeShare will cooperate with ŠKODA. In the other major cities in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, WeShare vehicles on offer will include Volkswagen’s e-Golf and e-up! as well as the ID.3 from the end of the year. WeShare already started operations in Berlin with 1,500 e-Golf cars in 2019 and the company now has 50,000 registered customers in the city.
Volkswagen upping use of green electricity at its plants
The Volkswagen brand is making good progress towards its target of CO2-neutral production by 2050. The company has now set itself further ambitious targets for 2020 in order to expand the percentage of externally sourced energy from renewable sources at its plants. Andreas Tostmann, Volkswagen Brand Board of Management Member for Production and Logistics, said: “We want to significantly increase the amount of green energy bought in at our plants this year from 70 to 90 per cent.” Besides that, Volkswagen is consistently focussing on natural gas for its own power generation and is switching its power plants in Wolfsburg from coal to gas.
“I’m cold” – The new Golf responds with intelligent climate control
Volkswagen models represent modern functionality and the brand’s typically easy orientation inside the vehicle. With the new Golf, operation is now even more intuitive. A visible and tangible example is the control for the 3-zone automatic air conditioner “Air Care Climatronic”. This newly designed air conditioning system has a Smart Climate menu that can be used to activate specific individual functions such as “Warm feet” or “Clear view” – not only at the press of a button, but also using voice control. The new model is therefore the first Golf to respond interactively to the wishes of the driver and passenger.
Volkswagen Group Refugee Aid: Package of measures helps 5,000 people in need
In Wolfsburg today, Frank Witter, Group Board Member for Finance and IT and Volkswagen Group Refugee Aid sponsor, welcomed the participants of the third intake under the “Train-ing Perspectives for Refugees” project. They will take part in an entry-level qualification program at Volkswagen tailored specifically to their requirements that includes an intensive language course and practical and theoretical vocational preparation as well as an internship at the company where they are training.
TRATON with strong vehicle sales in 2019
In 2019, TRATON SE in its Industrial Business sold 242,200 vehicles of the MAN, Scania, and Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus brands, exceeding the prior-year figure by 4%. This positive development was driven among other things by high demand for trucks in Europe in the first half of the year and a sharp increase in demand in Brazil. However, the market for trucks cooled further in the course of the year, especially in Europe (EU28+2). That is reflected by the fact that the Group’s order intake declined during the year, falling by 7% compared to 2018.
Volkswagen Group records higher deliveries in 2019
Despite shrinking overall markets, the Volkswagen Group grew its worldwide deliveries by 1.3 percent to 10,974,600 vehicles in 2019. Market shares were expanded in all regions, in some cases significantly. Volume growth was achieved in Europe (+3.9 percent) and South America (+3.2 percent) while there were slight falls in North America (-0.5 percent) and Asia-Pacific (-0.4 percent). Strong growth was recorded with electric vehicles. As a re-sult of many new models within the framework of the Group’s electric offensive and grow-ing interest on the part of customers, there was a rise of around 80 percent to more than 140,000 vehicles.
Volkswagen Passenger Cars brings 2019 to a successful close
In 2019, the Volkswagen brand delivered 6,278,300 vehicles throughout the world, exceeding the prior-year figure by 0.5 percent. In a shrinking overall market, the brand therefore significantly expanded its market share. Volume growth was achieved in Europe, South America, Asia-Pacific and the USA. Compared with the previous year, customers’ interest in electrified models grew considerably. More than 80,000 electric vehicles were delivered, corresponding to a marked increase of about 60 percent.
Albums
