Volkswagen Reduces New Car Development Time to 3 Years

Published On: 21 December 2023
100 Views

Volkswagen will be shortening manufacturing times and reducing test car units to grow revenue and reduce prices.

Volkswagen revealed its three-year plan, under which it is planning to improve the company’s sustainability. The automaker is shortening its new car development time to three years. Volkswagen recently announced that it is aiming to earn an additional $11 billion by 2026. To reduce prices and grow revenue, the company has disclosed several measures, such as shortening manufacturing times, reducing test car units for further technical developments, and introducing new partial retirement schemes.

The company is claiming to reduce car manufacturing time to 3 years. By 2026, the company is aiming to achieve 6.5 percent sustainability via its new “Accelerate Forward/Road to 6.5” program. During its new development strategy, the company is planning to unveil only a few test vehicles. These new measures will start being fruitful sometime in 2024. It will also help the OEM grow its sustainability and reach its target by reducing production costs.

Under the “Accelerate Forward/Road to 6.5” program, the automaker is adopting a few major variations across various levels of the company. This new move comes right after the CEO of Volkswagen, Thomas Schäfer, stated that the automaker is no longer competing with other brands. Volkswagen is trying to put the company back on track with its new program.

As of now, the company takes around 50 months to manufacture a Volkswagen car. Volkswagen’s three-year plan is to cut down the time to 36 months. The company claims that three years is sufficient time to launch a new vehicle on the market without having to compromise on its safety and quality. Also, it will help reduce production prices by up to 1 billion euros by the end of 2028. The brand will also reduce the number of prototypes utilized for the evaluation process. This will further reduce the price of the test mules by 50 percent.

When it comes to product-related measures, it is also enhancing its after-sales business, streamlining its procurement services, and optimizing its production plants. Apart from this, Volkswagen has also revealed that to reduce its expenses and raise profit, it is planning selective job cuts and will only offer partial retirement benefits to employees who were born in or before 1967.

The CEO of Volkswagen Cars, Thomas Schäfer stated that “With its current and future car models, the Volkswagen brand is on track with executing on this strategy. We will now strengthen our economic foundation to support our success in years to come. This will boost our efforts to make VW the world’s leading volume brand. In recent weeks we’ve made good progress in detailing the most comprehensive program the brand has ever launched. The precise contributions for all the action areas have been defined, the measures have been agreed and are already being implemented. Our efforts will in part start to bear fruit as early as 2024. This is crucial if we are to withstand the increasingly tough competition in extremely challenging market conditions.”