"In the future, the heart of Volkswagen will also beat with electricity, and our engineers in America, Europe and Asia are laying the foundations for that in the research alliance," Winterkorn said. "Volkswagen will be the automaker that will offer the electric car attainable for every customer."
The German manufacturer reportedly invests more than US$6.45 billion (EUR 5 billion) annually in R&D initiatives, mostly focused on sound economic grounds. At ERL, the company has more than 100 engineers and scientists who work on the cars of tomorrow.
"Volkswagen is bundling research and advance development activities for electric cars worldwide," Winterkorn said. "In terms of research, e-mobility is a key function for the automobile of tomorrow."
In addition to electric mobility, the ERL team is working on driver assistance systems, online navigation and social networking/ geo-tagged information, among other things. Winterkorn also said that some of the research at ERL is focused on the battery compound for automotive battery cells.
He also laid out the company's e-mobility roadmap for vehicle introductions into the US: Touareg Hybrid to be launched later this year, followed by the Jetta Hybrid in 2012, while (in 2013) to bring either the E-Up! or the Golf blue-e-motion.
"Our path to global leadership also leads through the United States, because we have considerable growth opportunities here," Winterkorn said. "Our goal is to turn Volkswagen into the leading volume brand here as well."
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