Volkswagen is faced with an ever increased competition from the

traditional automotive companies, the new players and saturation of its

main markets.

In China, one of the key company’s markets, new home based Chinese
manufacturers are competing by offering lower prices, but similar quality
build vehicles.

New companies, such as Tesla with its electric cars will make it very hard
for Volkswagen to compete in the electric cars segment. In addition,
Google, which tries to build self-driving cars is also threatening the
traditional automotive industry. The competition is further fueled by the
fact that the global automotive production capacity far exceeds the
demand. In 2015, there was an estimated global excess production
capacity of 31 million

2021 Volkswagen models perform top of segment for

lowest maintenance costs according to Vincentric
study

Volkswagen of America, Inc. is proud to announce results from a maintenance

cost study that has established best rankings for lowest cost of maintenance for
several of the brand’s core models. The analysis, performed by automotive data
firm Vincentric, found Atlas family and Jetta models topping their segments for
lowest cost of maintenance over the first five years of ownership, while Tiguan,
Passat and Arteon all performed better than models from key competitive
brands with respect to maintenance costs over the first five years of ownership.

“It’s a great day when we can announce results like this,” said Duncan
Movassaghi, executive vice-president, Sales and Marketing, Volkswagen of
America, Inc. “The data from this study by Vincentric shows that our brand’s
commitment to engineering and quality is paying off. Putting a VW in your
driveway is not just a fun decision to make; it’s a smart and sensible one as
well.”

Vincentric’s maintenance cost analysis found that select 2021 Volkswagen

models have a lower cost of maintenance than key competitors in their
categories. Specific VW highlights of the study include:

 2021 Atlas Family of vehicles has the lowest cost of maintenance among
midsize SUVs. The Atlas Cross Sport ranked #1 for lowest cost of
maintenance in the category.
 2021 Jetta ranks #1 for lowest cost of maintenance among compact
sedans.
 2021 Tiguan has a lower cost of maintenance than competitive models by
Honda, Toyota and Subaru in the compact SUV segment.
 2021 Passat and Arteon models have lower cost of maintenance than
competitive models by Toyota, Honda and Hyundai in the midsize sedan
segment.

The high rankings can be largely attributed to factors such as the brand’s focus
on improving scheduled maintenance requirements, as well as the Carefree
Maintenance program that is now standard on 2021 Volkswagen vehicles.

Here's How Volkswagen Can Beat Tesla (It's Not With Software Or Batteries)

While Volkswagen (VW) is catching up to Tesla in the global electric vehicle

(EV) market, the German automaker remains behind Elon Musk’s company in
some critical areas, including software, say some analysts, although VW holds
an advantage when it comes to scale.

In order to meet EU climate targets and beat Tesla, VW plans to launch about
70 purely electric car models by 2030.
VW also plans to cut the cost of EV batteries — and improve battery efficiency
relative to Tesla — by setting up its own battery cell production plants across
Europe.
Analysts at UBS recently praised VW’s debut EV model, the ID.3, as "the most
credible EV effort by any legacy auto company so far."
UBS anticipates that VW can seriously challenge Tesla's leadership in sales
volumes by 2022 “driven by a plethora of [new EV] launches.”
VW is already the top EV seller in Europe — Dan Levy, an analyst at Credit
Suisse, wrote in a recent research report that in Europe VW climbed to the
leading position in the all-electric car market in 2020, with a 24% market
share, up from 13% in the prior year, while Tesla’s comparative share in
Europe plunged from 29% in 2019 to 13% last year.

David Trainer, CEO of New Constructs, an investment research

firm in Nashville, says VW has at least one big advantage over Tesla
– scale. KEY BACKGROUND

Last year, Tesla sold just under 500,000 EVs, taking a 16% share of the global
market (down from 17% in 2019), while VW sold about 422,000, denoting a
13% share. In the fourth quarter of 2020, VW actually sold the most EVs
(191,000) compared with 183,000 for Tesla. However, in terms of all-electric
car sales, Tesla had a 23% global market share in 2020, more than double
VW’s 11% position (Tesla only manufactures all-electric vehicles, while VW
also makes plug-in hybrids). On Monday, VW unveiled plans to operate six
battery cell factories in Europe by the end of the decade; and 18,000 public
battery charging stations on the continent by 2025 (a fivefold increase from its
current network). VW will also set up 3,500 charging stations in the U.S. and
17,000 in China. VW expects all-electric vehicles to represent more than 70%
of its total car sales in Europe (double its prior target of 35%) by 2030; and
over 50% of its sales in China and the U.S. by then. 2030 is an important year
for “green” cars as that is the date by when the European Commission, the
executive branch of the European Union, wants to have at least 30 million
zero-emission vehicles on European roads as part of its overall campaign to
achieve carbon-neutrality in the EU by 2050. “We assume that [EV market]
share shifts in Europe were a function of the onset of [carbon dioxide
regulations] and subsidies, with Tesla also tight on inventory given the
Fremont [factory in California] shutdown,” Levy of Credit Suisse wrote.
Trainer of New Constructs points out that since VW already makes more cars
— including internal combustion engine vehicles — in a month than Tesla does
in a year, it can easily overtake Tesla as the world’s largest EV maker. “Tesla
has yet to prove it can produce vehicles anywhere near the scale of the
incumbents, who have proven they can switch their internal combustion
engine production capacity over to make EVs,” he says. “Further, the
incumbents have a large cost advantage because they’ve already built and paid
for their production factories while Tesla still has to build their factories.”
However, UBS cautioned that VW remains far behind Tesla in terms of its
software and battery capabilities, noting that VW currently has a $1,300 per
car cost disadvantage in batteries versus Tesla, and that “this gap is unlikely to
be closed due to Tesla's vertical integration and innovative power.” Software,
UBS analysts said, will be the "battleground" for EV supremacy in the future.
Meanwhile, VW plans to invest $19 billion over the next five years to upgrade
its digitalization and software capabilities.