Volkswagen is among the car brands that build the most electric cars. But a declining interest is now causing the Germans to turn to the hybrids.
Volkswagen is suddenly not in such a hurry to get away from the internal combustion engine.
On the contrary, the Germans now say that the hybrid cars are necessary. And that it is necessary to keep their production alive.
The conversion to a passenger car fleet consisting exclusively of electric cars on the new car market is not going as quickly as a number of car brands had imagined.
However, Volkswagen's chief executive, Thomas Schäfer, is also not much in favor of calling the hybrid cars anything more than 'a transitional technology'.
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– We still need this transition technology, because the interest in pure electric cars is falling a little at the moment, he says in an interview to Autocar .
In the same interview, Thomas Schäfer acknowledges that reality looks different than it did just six months ago.
At the end of 2023, Volkswagen thought hybrid cars were a thing of the past. But 'suddenly everyone wants hybrid cars', says the managing director.
Therefore, Thomas Schäfer also emphasizes that he is 'very happy' that Volkswagen decided to keep plug-in hybrids such as the Passat and Golf alive.
However, there are also indications that Volkswagen intends to think strategically with the plug-in hybrids and only offer them as part of the model program in countries which are not yet 'ready to choose only electric cars'.
Conversely, Volkswagen are not the only ones who are currently getting cold feet when it comes to electric cars. The sister brand at Bentley has decidedly said that it is dropping the idea of only building electric cars.
And at Rimac, which took over Bugatti from Volkswagen, it sounds like certain electric cars are simply not interesting anymore. Read more about it here .
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