Volkswagen AG (VOW3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for tuning in. Let me begin with the obvious. E-mobility has won the risk. It is the only solution to reduce mobility emissions fast. Five years ago, we decided to build a single platform for electric cars. Many in the industry questioned our approach at that time. Today, they are following suit, while we are reaping the fruit. Our group models account for 1/4 of all bats sold in Western Europe and are conquering market share around the world. E-mobility is the key pillar of Volkswagen's forward strategy. In the next few hours, we will present to you our power road map, the most important lever for electric mobility. We will take a holistic approach and expand our e-mobility value chain. Our goal is to secure a pole position in the global scaling of batteries. We will make charging as easy as fueling by strengthening our charging network in Europe, the United States and China. And we will combine mobility and energy management. Power will become a new core competence for Volkswagen and an integral part of our platform strategy. With 10 million cars a year, we know how to use platforms and synergies to transform a business successfully and unleash value. We have been at the forefront of e-mobility across the world, both in terms of technology and in terms of scale. Now we are applying the same principle to battery technology. We will focus on 1 standard battery. From 2023 onwards, we will be ready for rollout. By 2030, one cell format will be -- will cover 80% of the use cases within the group. The one size fits almost all cell design and high scales will radically reduce battery costs. In our entry segment, the unified cell will bring down battery costs by 50% compared to today. Lower prices for batteries means more affordable cars, which makes EVs even more attractive for customers. And we are taking an end-to-end approach. Our first battery recycling station is already in test mode. We have researched piloted production and are now on par with many suppliers. The new EU Green deal means that our BEV share will double to almost 60% in 2030. Battery capacity needs to grow in parallel. For us, this means an additional demand of about 240 gigawatt hours in Europe. That's why we are taking action. We are planning to operate up to 6 gigafactories with 40 gigawatt hours each across Europe on our own and in collaboration with partners. We are reducing the costs for batteries, thus reducing the price for electric models. And we will make charging as easy as fueling by taking high-power charging to the next level. We will multiply the number of fast charging points in Europe by a factor of 5 over the next 4 years. Together with partners, to cover 1/3 of the demand by 2025. In the U.S. and China, Volkswagen is building nationwide fast charging networks. We will create the largest public high-power charging network. Additionally, we are combining mobility and energy in an innovative way. The electric car will become an integral part of the future energy system. Electric vehicles will become mobile power banks. They will bring the green energy transition to a new level. It will be possible to manage energy in and around your house in a smart way, reducing costs for the customer and optimizing the grid. Now let me hand over to my colleague, Thomas Schmall. Thomas has built an impressive transformation track record. He has successfully electrified Volkswagen Group Components, our components business, which alone is a company with 80,000 employees. He has just joined our Group Board and now heads up the powerhouse for our e-mobility ecosystems. Thomas, the stage is yours. See you again later.

Thank you, Herbert. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Volkswagen powerhouse. The Volkswagen powerhouse, it's a technology division inside Volkswagen. We have 2 main pillars. The first main pillar on the left side, you can see it's a battery cell and the battery system. On the right side, you see a second pillar, charging and energy. These are the most 2 game changer inside the EV world. Let us start with the left side. Battery cell and battery system. The first challenge for a big OEM is scale. In the EV world, size matters. That means you need to find a way to have huge volume over a big spread of product portfolio. That's the base for efficacy in the EV world. Based on that, the second challenge will be the technology road map, which technology you are using, be right in time and, for sure, the price hitting the price targets. There is, in the EV world, need for speed because we need ramp up fast. So you have 2 points where you can accelerate. The first point is organizationally, you need put all responsibilities together in one hand. This is the reason why we call this closed loop. We are not working longer. This is new revision of powerhouse in segments or in pillars inside the company. We have 1 hand, 1 responsibility, looking to the closed loop in total. That means we have the battery cell, the battery system, the first use, the second use, we will explain later, and for sure, the recycling. If we have the structure placed in, what is the next? The next is the technology road map. We have a fundamental mind change inside our company. We are not locking longer to a current approach, making cars and defining out of the cars, the batteries on the battery system. We will put the battery in the middle of the heart of our development of cars. This is a major cost point in the EV world. If we have the volume, and we will roll it out, we need put it in the middle, in the center of our cars and then defining the cars around the battery. Sounds easy. How we do that? We're calling that unified cell concept. You probably will see 4x the same design of a cell on this picture. But the intelligence, it's inside, you have not a unique cell. You have a format, a design what is similar overall but yet different inside. How this works, we'll explain you in some seconds. With this concept, we are really able to put 80% of a unified cell in our cars, 20%, for sure, a big OEM as Volkswagen needs specific solution, independent from the cell design. That can be a prismatic approach or prismatic cell. It doesn't matter. Major important is that we have the 80% based on the same design, on the same format to achieve economies of scale. When we start, we will start in 2023. It's more or less tomorrow with this unified cell concept inside the group. The rollout starts in 2023. And then ramping up, we will achieve in 2030, the 80%, I promised you. With the 80% on space, we can make a huge cost focus. We are reaching our cost targets in the volume segment. That means we will be 30% less than today in the cost of a cell in the volume. And we have on top the possibility to achieve a 50% cost increase in the entry segment. As you can see, the intelligence is inside. We need to talk a little bit how this works. Coming back to the closed loop. The first point in the battery cell is the chemistry. I'd like to welcome Frank Blome on stage.

Thank you, Thomas.

Frank, before I hand over, promise me to make it not too complicated, yes?

I will try.

Thank you.

I will do what I can. Thank you, Thomas. So let's get into the inside of the battery cell. That's the chemistry, basically. We do have an entry chemistry with iron phosphate. On a long-term base, we see high manganese content for the volume vehicle segment; and for specific solutions, high nickel, manganese and cobalt is important because high nickel means high range, high performance. The endgame out of our point of view is solid state. Before I get started, I have to explain a bit what lithium ion cell is. We see the anode, very simplified view, a separator, the electrolyte and the cathode. The anode drives the charging very much. The cathode drives the range and the cost of the battery cell and the battery systems very much. Let's get to the cathode. The cathode is the control lever for sustainable supply chain, cost and range. Here, we see the state of the art technology. The chemistry today, typically used in all-electric vehicles, is nickel, manganese and cobalt. That defines the cost of the cell by 40%. I don't think there's any other layer into the car what defines cost that much. And also the range comes out of the cathode by 90%. Getting to LFP. LFP has a big cost advantage, a slight range disadvantage. Iron phosphate, that's LFP, comes without any cobalt, nickel and manganese, and it's a very robust technology. The cycle stability is very good. That means especially for cars with low range, this is a very promising technology. High manganese cells. That's the long term, out of our point of view, very promising technology because it's cheaper. Nickel content is lower. Nickel is quite expensive. Cobalt is, too. There's no cobalt any longer in the cell and the range is on the same stage than the cells today, the state-of-the-art technology. Let's get to the anode. As said, the anode is a control lever for charging performance. If the anode is charging, all the lithium has to go into the anode. That's why it's 100% performing the charge time, the charge performance. The anode also has a chance to improve energy density and with that range by 10%. And that can be done by synthetic graphite plus silicon. If we get silicon into the anode, we have a better range. It's plus 10%, and the charging time performs better, too, because the silicon can connect more lithium iron than just the graphite. We do have it in production, the Porsche Taycan and the Audi e-tron GT are using that already and they are the benchmark for charging time in these days. Now I'd like to talk about solid state. Again, this is the endgame for battery, lithium-ion battery cells. The simpler design leads to higher performance and lower costs. We start again with a more concrete sketch, a more detailed sketch of anode and cathode. So the anode content is copper and graphite. Separators in between. Electrolyte is there, too, and it's fluid electrolyte to make sure the lithium-ion can move between the 2 parts. Cathode is on the other side. Content, in this case, is NMC and aluminum. Coming to solid state. Here, we see that there's no graphite any longer. No liquid electrolyte. Separator is the key of success, that's containing the solid-state technology, making sure that the lithium-ion can go in one and the other direction. And with that, we have an improvement of weight, of cost and of charging time. There's no barrier any longer as graphite or silicon for charging. And only the anode today and an ID.3 with the biggest battery is 100 kilogram. We can get rid of that weight, too. That means the charging time can be less than half compared to state-of-the-art technology, and the range will be plus 30% because the cell has less weight, is easier and simpler. I want to prove that with data. Here, we see data from our partner, QuantumScape. The solid-state battery will come in now. And you see that a solid-state battery as we have it now and the 10% to 80% is a typical charging with high-performance charging. Here, we are at that 12 minutes already. That's a proof-of-concept for the technology. A standard state-of-the-art cell today is between 35 and 20 minutes. So fast is always better. That's a big, big thing we made here with our partner, QuantumScape. And of course, there's still a lot to do to industrialize the technology, but the proof-of-concept for the design we see already here. What does that mean in reality? In reality, we just took out a few examples, 450-kilometer or 280 miles range from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, for example, Leipzig to Munich or Beijing to Dongying. And that has to be done today with a charging time of 25 minutes. 25 minutes is not too bad, but we are planning to get to 17 minutes until 25. And with solid-state technology after 25, we are able to do it in 12 minutes. So that's a big advantage and will help the customer to adapt the technology also to long distance drives. Now I want to come to race applications, race applications for lithium-ion batteries and it's my pleasure to hand over to Oliver Blume.

Thank you very much to Frank Blome. Hello and welcome from the design center [ wiser ]. It's a pleasure to contribute to the Power Day. Indeed, the battery cell is tomorrow's combustion chamber. This is no less true in the high-performance sports car segment that Porsche inhabits. Motorsport has always been a development laboratory for Porsche. Things that have been proven on the racetrack are later incorporated in the production. This is an integral part of the Porsche DNA. We have also transferred this principle to the development of our fully electric production sports cars. For example, the Le Mans-winning Porsche 919 provided a crucial basis for development of the all-electric Porsche Taycan. For the Taycan, we adopted the innovative 800 wall technology as well as the cooling concept and virtual development methods from our 919 LMP1 race car. This is all superior technology that successfully differentiates Porsche from the competition. Our electrified, high-performance sports and racing cars place the highest demands on battery technology. To meet these demands, Porsche needs special high-performance cells. Our goal must be to ensure a permanent supply of high-performance cells that fully satisfy our specific requirements for future electrified race cars and electric super sports cars. Porsche had further developed the engine of the 911 for use on the race track in the 911 GT3 R. We must think in exactly the same way for battery cells. We must design them for all very specific purposes as high-performance cells. Our goals are clear. Porsche will systematically build up know-how in the area of high-performance cell chemistry. We will ensure that there is a completely European production chain for high-performance batteries. These are intended for use in high performance, limited production run cars and in customer motorsport. As carryover effect, also volume and power sales will benefit from this technology experience. What possibilities do we see for development of specialist high-performance batteries? We have identified various key factors here, new materials, such as silicon as a main anode component, optimize energy density and reduce internal resistance. This leads to a significant improvement in energy recuperation and fast-charging capability. New electrolytes and additives also permit operations at temperatures above 75 degrees Celsius and optimized cell design with thinner electrodes also leads to a reduction in internal resistance. Improved cooling of the cells increases the thermal performance of the overall system. In order to meet the extreme demands placed on the cell systems in high-performance use, it is necessary to change the chemistry from graphite to silicon anodes. Silicon has a potential to be a game-changer. It can theoretically store 10x more lithium ions than graphite. Silicon has a much lower lithium plating tendency than graphite and, therefore, a much higher fast-charging capability. And the thinner layers reduce internal resistance. Innovative, high-performance batteries therefore, have great potential. We will test these innovations in Motorsport. We will also significantly improve the performance of and end-charging convenience for electric production cars through corresponding know-how transfer. This will contribute greatly to the wider acceptance of electromobility. So far for now back to Wolfsburg.

Thank you, Oliver. We are all proud to be a part of the Power team. We think closed loop, but we are open minded. We are convinced that the battery is the key to lead in e-mobility, if we manage the complete supply chain powerful. The task is big. We prepare now the second wave of industrialization with the next-generation of technology. Supply chain strategy is set to secure electric vehicle volume ramp-up and achieve cost leadership. Vertical integration is the key for this. Let's take a short look into the value chain. 1/3 of the cost are battery manufacturing, engineering and integration in the vehicle. 2/3 are components, raw material and also raw material processing. As you heard before, we will see many of innovations in manufacturing process and chemistry. At this point, our strategy for vertical integration comes in. We clearly follow a cost volume strategy to ramp up e-mobility on Volkswagen way to zero. The clear plan, unified cell as the base. The volume per unit goes up and the scale cost goes down, delivering innovations to customer even faster is a part of the plan. And this will guide us to a cost leadership position in e-mobility, robust and innovative supply chain are vital for our growth. We will extend our scope. The entire value chain competes for the most interesting chunks of the business, but Volkswagen is in a full proposition. At the unified cell format, we'll have an outstanding scale effects. This enable us to redesign the traditional supply chain setup. It will also provide us with flexibility to shift between make and buy for cells and related processes, upstream or downstream by focusing on strategic partnership. Without the entire value chain, we will decrease complexity and increase implementation speed. All options are on the table to move between make or buy or partnership in various constellation on our own with partners. In-house sale protection is only a step along the supply chain, and we are committed to that. Take recycling, another example of doing the right things in terms of circular economy, but also a field of rich new business opportunities. Thinking closed group is not only a matter of business sense. Customers expect our products to contribute to climate protection. They want the supply chain to be transparent and sustainable as possible. They demand continuous improvement that we keep our product up to date. It's a must. They choose because of new technology, and top performance in terms of range and fast charging. They deserve best value for money. We will define the next battery generations for e-mobility now the unified cell strategy is our entire ticket in the vertical integration in our value chain. This will allow us to exceed our customer expectations, contribute in the sustainability green Volkswagen footprint, scaling and ramp up into large volume, new strong partnerships and robust raw material supplies. Supply chain with a high degree of local content. This is a historic change for our partners to use and to close the loop. The unified cell is the heart of our electric vehicles and the vertical integration dictates the heartbeat. And now Thomas will give us a look in the production area.

Thank you, Jörg. Thank you for this deep dive in the supply chain. Heartbeat, Jörg, I like it. So let us see, the next step in the closed loop is the production process. After we had a deep dive of chemistry and supply chain, let us talk a little bit about production. The main 3 processes are the production of electrodes, the assembly of electrodes and then the finish. The next step you can see here, it will be the dry coating process. The dry coating process means what? All the light ones in the background, all the single processes, you can cut off the process. That brings you to what? That brings you to a 50% decrease of production area to a 30% decrease of investment and to much better CO2 balance sheet. That means you can, with a better CO2 balance sheet, more or less double the output of existing site. What is a dramatic step in front? Now the big question is after the dry coating process and you put out the all steps, how we can make the process much faster? How you can stack as fast as possible the electrodes? For that, we prepared a small film for you. Here, you can see something. You don't -- will recognize. Now you see it more or less what it is. And now you know it. It's money. This will be the benchmark for us to stick electrodes. We like to come to the same speed of stacking electrodes, like you can see here for money. This we will -- aiming for, and this we will realize. That means it will be really, really fast. After the stacking of serve electrodes, the next step will be to come from the cells, to modules, to battery system. For that, I'd like to invite Frank on the stage because he will explain again how this will work and how will be -- this in the future. Frank, welcome on the stage. And please, again, don't make it complicated.

Thank you, Thomas. This time it's easier. This time it's much easy. So I'd like to talk about a simulation we prepared, an animation where we see the battery system. And thanks to all our engineers preparing this. I really like this animation. You will see right now. Today, we have a cell to module system. That means the cells become a module. The module is getting into the system, and that's battery. The next step is cell to pack and sell to car. With cell to pack, the cells are getting into the battery system directly. The battery system then is a complete entity and gets into the car, for cell to cars even further advanced for cell to car. The cells go into the battery cabinet and battery system is part of the integrated mechanical design of the vehicle. Here, we see the comparison between today and the future. So less complexity gets to better cost, better weight and better volume of the system. And with that, we get to a higher range of the vehicle. Now it's my pleasure to hand over to Markus Duesmann, talking about the system approach, the first application of what I've shown here. Thank you very much.

Hello, and a very warm welcome to all our viewers. We've heard a lot about battery technologies now. But what does it mean in practical terms, say, for the models, we will present in the next few years? As some of you might know, we launched Artemis last June. Artemis helps us to ensure fast and agile launches of high-efficiency e-models for our customers. This is how we are developing a next-generation electric car in record time, which we will present to our customers late 2024. Furthermore, Artemis will develop the automotive ecosystem of tomorrow, meaning new services, business models and partnerships as well as innovative processes, methods and engineering tools to strengthen our virtual product development. After almost 9 months, we have now reached an important project milestone. And successfully completed the concept phase for the first model based on Artemis. We are now starting serial development of this project. The model will play a key role in its respective model series. Among other things, it will be the spearhead of our electronic platform. This first model based on Artemis will also be the first one to use a new unified battery cell format. After all, the model will be highly efficient and fully suitable for long-distance travel. The battery is a key to make this possible. The Artemis model will be the initial use case for the cell to pack technology, the group's new standard. Once again, the model serves as a pioneer for technology that we will later rollout across the entire group. And with that, back to Wolfsburg.

Thank you, Markus. Thank you for the nice explanation. Battery system in the new car Artemis. After the battery system, the step for the first use cars. We step in the second use, we'll come later back to the last process or last circle in the closed loop. The last circle is recycling process. We at Volkswagen are taking this really seriously. Recycling, we invented a process we are calling hydrometallurgy process. With that process, we can recycle 95% of a cell. The 95%, that means more or less only the separator. You cannot recycle. The rest, we have the opportunity to bring all minerals back in the first step to make a cell. You can see how a cell will be in the different minerals divided. You can see it and you see all of that, more or less also a separator. We will recycle with our process. We started the recycling process in January 21 in our plant in Salzgitter. It's the first plant we installed a machine like that. And how on this work, we will show you in a small film. [Presentation]

Well, congrats to the whole team in Salzgitter and in Wolfsburg, that we have been the capacity to install something like that in such a short time. The main 3 advantages you can see here. We have want than more 1 -- more than 1 tonne CO2 per vehicle saving. We have, for sure, it's sustainable effect as we are recycling the material. And the customer will -- the customer benefit of the increase of the cost fall. We have lower cost because we are able to use the minerals out of the cell, again in the same process. That was it from the closed loop approach, you can see all 3 circles, it had been explained, again. And after the close loop, what's next? The next step is the localization strategy, how we will localize volume in Europe as a short few. Wow, that's -- I like him. You can see out of the Green Deal, the share of the EV cars will increase for Volkswagen only, only for Volkswagen, from 30% to 60%. We will double in our volume scenario. Actually, we have the EV share. That means what? That means the demand of 240 gigawatt-hours only for Volkswagen in Europe. Well, you can translate that in 6 plants or 6 sites with 40 gigawatt-hours. And again, that's only the demand for Volkswagen. So how we do that? The first step will be our plant with Northvolt, together, in Sweden. This plant, this site will come with start of production in '23. It's also more or less tomorrow. We changed a little bit the approach in the last weeks and months because what is the new story behind that? The new story is a new setup. The actual set up was that we have actually planned to make on 2 sites in Sweden, 1, and 1 in Salzgitter, more or less 30 gigawatts, 2 sides, same cell. New step will be that we will increase, we will increase our gigawatt hours for Northvolt in Sweden. We will go up in the end for 40 gigawatt hours only in Sweden, even have only 1 project team, only 1 location and all resources bundled on that in Sweden. In Sweden, we will do the unified cell for the premium segment. On top, to speed up and to make it real, we like to install 40 gigawatt plant in Salzgitter with a different cell format. This will be the unified cell for the volume segment. That means we are 2x higher in volume. We have, instead of 40, we have now 80. And that gives you more volume in much faster time. We will have, in a summary, a cleaner setup. We are bundling the resources. We will have less complexity in the process. We have a faster ramp up. And finally, a higher volume upward. That makes the EV world real. And now I'm really happy to see Peter Carlsson in Sweden, and after Peter, our friends from TRATON and Scania will tell us something, how they can use cells in the big cars in the tracks. But first, let us see what is Peter is telling us.

Good afternoon, Wolfsburg. This is Peter Carlsson, Founder and CEO of Northvolt. I'm standing here at Northvolt housing in Stockholm in front of our big screen showing the ongoing development activities in our large-scale factory setup in Skellefteå in Northern Sweden, where we're building one of the largest battery cell manufacturing in Europe. As you can see behind me, there is still a lot of snow in Skellefteå and that snow will, eventually, during the spring, becomes watery in the rivers that will power the hydropower and, thereby, drive the electricity that will support this plant, making it the greenest setup for cell manufacturing that we are aware of. And this really brings the Northvolt mission of building the world's greenest battery into power, where we're focusing on everything from sustainable mining into manufacturing and also at the end-of-life to fully recycle the raw materials into our own manufacturing, into a fully circular economy setup. This framework of sustainability have just grown over the last years. And we are also now seeing the EU Regulatory moving towards driving sustainable batteries as a key enabler for the industry. The Volkswagen partnership and journey together started early, started with developing and industrializing products together as a customer, also providing experience in scale-up and also becoming a major investor in Northvolt. We're now taking the second step in this partnership, where Northvolt will become the premium partner on high-performance cell development and manufacturing towards the Volkswagen Group. We are consolidating that effort into Skellefteå and expanding Skellefteå, where Volkswagen is adding USD 14 billion in additional orders and capacities towards Skellefteå and where we are developing the next-generation cells together with Volkswagen. On top of that, Volkswagen also committed to additional investments in the Northvolt further funding rounds. So we are extremely happy with this partnership, and I wish you all the best in the success at Volkswagen. So over to you, Christian Levin, TRATON and new CEO of Scania Bus and Trucks.

Thank you, Peter. The collaboration with Peter Carlsson and his team at Northvolt are really important, not only to Scania, but to the entire TRATON Group, and it greatly supports our strive to be the leader in the shift from conventional commercial vehicles to electrify commercial vehicles. So thank you, Peter. Or is it even possible to electrify a heavy commercial vehicle weighting 40 ton? That was the question. Many of us asked ourselves maybe 5 years back in our industry and hesitated. But today, the answer is clearly, yes, it is possible. But there are a few things you should keep in mind when you think about heavy commercial vehicles. The first is the amount of energy you need to carry on board in order to be able to drive the vehicle. And we're talking in the range of 6, 8, maybe 10x the amount of energy compared to a car. Another is the utilization, where we maybe use our cars a couple of hours or maybe even 1 hour per day. For truck or bus, it's the opposite. They need to be standing still maximum an hour per day. And finally, it's the range or it's the amount of kilometers we drive. We are talking about ranges of 150,000 up to even 300,000 kilometers per year. But there's also a business challenge to it. And here, we need to talk about the concept of TCO, total cost of ownership. Now you buy a car for many reasons. But you buy a commercial vehicle for 1 reason only. And it is an investment in a machine that you need in your business in order to make more money. And TCO is the single most important item for our customers in order to be competitive towards their competitors. And that's why it's so important to drive the shift that battery electric vehicles can reach what we call TCO parity. Now the good news is that it's not a question of if that will happen but, rather, when it will happen. So there will be 2 challenges. Now our vehicles are not sold in a couple of models. They are sold in millions of executions. So the challenge will be so without losing payload, without losing space, to fit the batteries into all of these millions lines of vehicles. The second challenge is the charging infrastructure. So even if we reach TCO parity, if our customers cannot charge as they're on the road, they will not shift over anyway, which means that we need to have sufficient energy on board to drive the 4.5 hour. But then for the charging, we need to be able to do a complete fill up of these batteries in 45 minutes. Yes. Going forward, we, in principle, see the same trends when it comes to the technology development. But the customer demands are different. So whereas our commercial vehicle customers mainly value energy and cost, the car customers would rather go for power, life length and efficiency and that requires a different optimization of the cell. And as a result, we're actually going to use a different cell chemistry. So yes, overall, we have different customer demands when we walk down the electrification road. And with that, I would like to leave the word over to Alexander Vlaskamp, Executive Vice President and Head of Sales and Marketing in Scania, to talk more about how the customers view the electrification journey going forward. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Christian. And I could not agree more. The focus on total cost of ownership will be the decisive factor for our customer base to change over their fleet and transport solution to e-mobility. The Scania approach, also for batteries, is to take the entire scope from understanding the customer use case per application to research and development, production and beyond. Scania is, therefore, investing in a new battery laboratory, which will be fully operational by Autumn 2021. The second life of the battery is also an important factor to look into, using batteries for energy storage solutions, for example. The customer is core. And for the customer, a battery electric vehicle requires less service than a conventional one, meaning higher uptime and improved cost per kilometer or hour of operations. Yet, the initial investment for the customer is significant. Just like we are world leader in energy efficiency for our combustion drivelines, we need to put as much focus on this energy efficiency for our electric vehicles. And it all starts with efficient batteries. We noticed that customers are discovering that finding the right charging solutions is a complex matter. And we are supporting customers there. Based on historical route data, we are examining for our customers the best tailored solutions. However, on the hardware and power, we rely on partnerships with companies like ENGIE and EVBox. Together with these partners, we can offer charging equipment and power as a complete solution from Scania.

Thank you, our colleagues in Sweden. Thank you, Peter. We are totally convinced at Volkswagen that we will strengthen our partnership with you guys in Sweden with Northvolt. It's a fantastic project. I have been here several times. Unfortunately, no, it's not so possible, but we are close together to ramp up this plant as fast as possible. And on parallel, you can see in the channels, what the Scania guys can do with ourselves, from Northvolt and other. Back to Salzgitter. As we like to go for total production in '25 in Salzgitter, this plant will be managed by Volkswagen. It will be the plant for the volume segment of unified cell. To start in '25 means you need move ground. Here you can see our Salzgitter facility. And there you can see the new cell plant we like to do there. This is a huge ground movement. We will occupy around about 100,000 square meters in Salzgitter plant. And it's a perfect, perfect, perfect symbol for transformation. Salzgitter was the heart of our combustion engines. We are transforming this plant in a new technology, which is forming it in the future. We make the future happen in Salzgitter. And how we do that with the people? I'd like to hand over to Guenther Mendl, to our Center of Excellence in Salzgitter. Guenther?

Welcome to our state-of-the-art pilot line opened 2 years ago. With around 450 employees and additional international locations in China and the U.S., we have concentrated the cell competence within the VW Group. We focus on future technologies for products and furthermore, for innovative manufacturing processes for our large scale production. Together with our partners, we create the batteries of tomorrow. The cell production can be divided in 3 parts. Electrode production, cell assembly, and formation. The first step is to produce the electrodes for anode and the cathode, coated aluminum and copper foils. The coating material is the most valuable asset in an electric vehicle and determines essential the properties for charging, power and range. Cell foils have to be stacked with the separators between to make the cell stack and placed it into the cell can. During the formation steps, the cell will be activated by charging and discharging several times. Here, you can see the completed cell. To build up knowhow in Salzgitter, we invested EUR 100 million so far. Moreover, we plan tomorrow's factory, which will be located right next to this building. And now we will have a look inside to our new innovative laboratory. I hand over to my colleague, Jörg.

Thank you, Guenther. Indeed, this is a public premiere of one of the most advanced cells in the automotive industry. We will dive deeply into the cells and unravel the key factors of performance to ultimately design the cells for the future. In our cell development lab, we developed the cell chemistries to fulfill the needs of our customers. Innovative materials and speed are key to reach our goals. Therefore, we develop anodes and cathodes in parallel on distinct lines, and the most promising designs will then be transferred to the pilot line. In the analytical lab, a steady cater to support the development and quality assurance. We have a complete set of state-of-the art devices and even cutting-edge devices. We can see the lithium in our cells through a very powerful scanning electron microscope, and just a few of its kind in use worldwide. So we can fine-tune the cell designs and understand underlying mechanisms. Here where we stand, we do performance testing. The testing is highly automated and energy-efficient. And the most important test is fast charging. On screen, through a test run of a cell in early-stage of development, the results are very promising. Fast charge to 80% is possible in about 12 minutes, and this is close to our goal of 10 minutes. And for the customer, this would already mean cutting charging time into half. So much for now from the labs, bye and back to Guenther.

With the expansion of the Center of Excellence, we have set an important milestone for our future of battery cell strategy. We, therefore, make sure to offer our customers the most attractive electric vehicles. And with that, I say goodbye from the Center of Excellence in Salzgitter and back to Wolfsburg.

Thank you, Guenther. Thank you for this nice explanation out of Salzgitter, our Center of Excellence in Europe. After Europe, we will have a second Center of Excellence in China, more or less the same impact. And then we come to States. That means we will triple our Center of Excellence. We will have 3x worldwide Center of Excellence. Back to our site production in Europe, what we are doing here. I explained to you the first plant '23 will be in Sweden. The second plant will be Salzgitter. Where will be the third and fourth plant? You can have an idea more or less here on this picture. The third plant we like to do in Spain, in Portugal or France, it depends where we get the best setup in the region. So we have opportunity in the South of Europe to make the third plant. And the fourth plant, we will do in Eastern Europe. We don't know until today if it will be the Czech Republic in Poland or in Slovakia. We are discussing with partners, with governance, with the European Commission where is the best place to find to install the fourth plant. And on top, until 2030, we will make 2 additional plants. How this will come to financing? You will see the next chart will give you an idea, the volume in the area with 2 -- with the #2. It's a new volume I'm discussing and telling to you. This is the volume we need, 240 gigawatt hours. So we are in discussion how much you need to in-house and what we can do with external key suppliers. The first 2 plants, Sweden and Salzgitter are matching perfectly in our planning front until '25. As you have seen, '25 will be Salzgitter. What will happen after? This we are in deep discussion. We have our strong financial targets we stick to. But if it's strategically necessary to increase our engagement in battery cells and battery manufacturing, we are able, we are capable to expand that inside our financial numbers. Next, in the next month to this issue. We need a circle of Volkswagen Group, the government and the external parties. This will our future success. We cannot make everything by our own. We don't like to do everything by own. We do it if it will be necessary. A little back down to earth costs. We explained to you about chemistry, about supply chain, about production. And I told you we will achieve a 50% decrease of cost in the entry segment and the volume segment, 30%. Where it comes from? 15% will come from the cell design. 10% will come from the production process. This is a tri-coating process. 20%, the major part is from the raw material inside cell and 5% will be the battery system concept as cell to car, cell to pack. These are the -- this is a split how we will achieve the 50% or the 30% as we had shown to you. The key takeaways out of the first session. We, at Volkswagen, we have a clear technology road map. We know that we will achieve this unified cell 80% of product portfolio, what is the base for everything. On top, the 20% can be cylindric, prismatic or pouch. We can define it because 80% are our baseline. We achieve the cost targets to be on a competitive level. In the last days and weeks, you have read a lot of information from external analysis, confirming that we are actually today competitive and we will improve it further. We install the closed-loop responsibility to speed up every activity for the cell. And we have a really, really solid localization plan for the top 2 plants in Sweden and Salzgitter and other ones will come soon until 2030. This was the first session about cell and battery system. Let us look a little bit on the second pillar. The second pillar is charging and energy. This is also really important for setup and rollout for electric cars. The top 3 reason not buying a car -- among the top reason of not buying electric car is always charging infrastructure. It's inconvenient. It's occupied, its defect, and we had a lot of questions to answer. On top, you see different charging situations worldwide. A small picture here on the screen, you see we have in a city, we have out of the city. We have on the street. We have private. We have public. So we have a lot of different charging processes for our customer. And it's not only Europe we need looking for. We were looking also for the other countries and continents. We look for China. We look for States. And to give you a small, small idea what we are looking for, I like to talk a little about China. China, 1.4 billion population. We have a lot of cities -- big cities in China. So I'm really curious to see what our colleague in China, Mr. Stephan Wollenstein and his colleagues, can tell us about China. Stephan?

Germany, greetings from China. In 2019, Volkswagen Group declared its goTOzero strategy. And just last year, President Xi Jinping that China aims to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. And both parties, Volkswagen Group as well as China, are clear that e-mobility will be the key to realizing this. The MEV segment is now the fastest-growing segment in China, with deliveries estimated to be about 5 million by 2025. And in early preparation for this, we have then production capacity for our pure electric MEB platform up to 600,000 vehicles per year. So by 2025, our local MEB production will include 15 models across various brands, with 35% of group China portfolio forecast to be electrified models by then. We aim to achieve 1.5 million MEB deliveries annually. And to support this need, we are setting up 2 pure electric companies with a majority shareholding. Thus, we are fully embracing China's opening up policy. So Volkswagen [indiscernible] will start production by 2023, followed by the Audi FAW MEV company with the first vehicle rolling off the production line in 2024. And as of today, until the end of the decade, we will ramp up deliveries of battery electric vehicles to reach over 2 million sales per annum. And this means by 2030, we will have a group pure electric car park of about 12 million units in operation in China. And looking at these numbers, it is quite obvious that in order to succeed with e-mobility, it is pivotal to cater for a comprehensive charging infrastructure, which provides easy, convenient charging for our millions of BEV customers. So how do we evaluate today's charging infrastructure in China? My colleague, Xu Peng, will give you a quick overview of the current status.

Thank you, Stephan. Charging and range anxiety are definitely the top 2 factors that inhibit customers in China from currently buying electric car. Our market research shows that about 50% of Chinese car buyers consider charging to be inconvenient and time-consuming. Almost 50% of potential customers consider driving range to be insufficient compared to internal combustion engine vehicles and very important when judging about any charging infrastructure. 40% of people in China cannot install a private charging facility, meaning a wall box where they live. The Chinese government is, for sure, investing heavily in charging infrastructure. Starting around 8 years ago, China's charging infrastructure began to see steady growth. And by the end of 2020, around 800,000 public charging spots has been installed across the country. Despite being pretty impressive, this growth figure does not tell the full story, and this is still not enough to unleash the full potential of the electric era here in China. During our regular testing of public charging spots in the Chinese market, we have found out around 80% of charging spots are still fitted with slow charging A/C post. Over 30% of charging spots are routinely occupied by non-electric cars. And up to 30% of charging posts are defective, either due to lack of maintenance or because of outdated technology. From a user experience perspective, this translates into a success rate for charging as low as 30%, which means that out of 800,000 potentially available public charging facilities, less than 300,000 really searched electric vehicle users. Understandably, this creates frustration among customers with a knock-on effect on potential new buyers. As for home charging, while most OEMs provide a wall box, as we do at Volkswagen, there are still major challenges when it comes to installation. For a start, incorrect installation, a lack of proper maintenance are common. The bigger issue, however, is that many owners in China do not have their own parking spot. This has resulted in a low installation rate of around 40%. From all the facts, you can see that charging is still a challenge, including here in China, currently the biggest electric vehicle market in the world. But we, at Volkswagen, are determined to convert this challenge into opportunity for our best offensive and our China business. Ladies and gentlemen, my colleague, Thomas Mueller, is just the person to explain how exactly we are planning to do this. Thomas?

Thank you, Xu Peng. Ladies and gentlemen, to take all of these issues, we formed a charging provider joint venture in 2019, named CAMS, charging as a mobile service. CAMS was formed by Volkswagen Group China, long-standing JV partner, FAW Group, JAC and Star Charge, China's current #2 charging provider. With CAMS, we aim to make Volkswagen Group the most EV-ready and EV-enabled car company in China by confronting the problems outlined by Xu Peng. Through CAMS, we offer everything our best customers need from home-based wall boxes to a highly competitive network of public charging stations with fast D/C charging. Let me give you a quick overview of how our customer journey looks like with CAMS public charging service. Entirely consolidated into one app, it takes just one click to reserve the charging for 30 minutes in advance. Upon arrival, the charging called smart lock will allow the customer access via the app or by scanning a QR code, then simply plug and charge. While the car is charging, the app will make nearby recommendations of restaurants, shopping malls and other places to visit. Once charging is completed, payment will happen seamlessly through the app's prepaid account. Ladies and gentlemen, that's what we call worry-free first-class charging. The first 40 superchargers are already installed in Beijing, Shenzhen and Chengdu, with charging power ranging from 120 to 180 kilowatts. So highly efficient and fast, meaning convenient. In total, we already have 255 charging stations with 1,800 charging poles, but we do not stop here. As the first ID. models from Volkswagen are just finding their way into customer ends, we are massively expanding our charging service network in 2021. We aim to have over 500 charging stations and more than 6,000 charging points in China within this year and achieve full coverage in 8 cities. With this level of coverage, we will have a highly competitive charging network in place, catering for approximately 80% of the Chinese MEV market. Come 2025, CAMS plans to have expansion in excess of 17,000 charging points with 120 and 180 kilowatts, and high-power charging, greater than 300-kilowatt power, covering most of the cities in China. To give a better impression of what CAMS charging in China looks and feels like, let's join Stephan Wollenstein, experiencing our CAMS charging journey. [Presentation]

Ladies and gentlemen, as you just saw, CAMS will not only support our e-mobility strategy by ensuring the framework of necessary conditions for our customers but will also provide them with a first-class easy charging experience. For us, CAMS provides even more. It represents new business opportunities, and they are profitable ones. We target to breakeven in 4 years, seeing payback within 9 years. I hope that from this short overview of our charging offensive in the Chinese market, we have demonstrated how we, at Volkswagen, are turning a challenge into a self-sustaining business opportunity. Thank you. We hope you are electrified. And now back to the colleagues in Wolfsburg.

Thank you, Stephan and team in China. Big story, 17,000, 1-7,000 charging stations only with CAMS in China until '25. This is big. What we are doing on the other side of the world? Let us go to the States. 320 million inhabitants, big cities also and over 1 million EVs in the States. So we need a charging structure.

I am very excited to join you today. I am Giovanni Palazzo, President and CEO of Electrify America and Electrify Canada. And I'm speaking to you from our Center of Excellence here in Virginia. I would like to share a bit of background on our companies and our efforts to assist in the global movement to advance e-mobility across the U.S. and Canada. With an investment of $2 billion, Electrify America is the largest open D/C fast-charging network in the U.S. serving all models of electric vehicles on the market today. Since opening our first charging station in May 2018, we had installed on average 4 stations a week, and we are accelerating that unprecedented rate of deployment each and every week. Right now, we have more than 560 charging stations in operation, and we expect to have about 800 stations opened by the end of 2021. Our reach in both countries extends to 45 states in the U.S. and 4 Canadian provinces, but we plan on further expansion. We are delivering on our commitment to support zero-emission vehicle adoption through a network that is comprehensive, reliable, customer-friendly and dedicated to providing advanced technology solutions. And we know our charging networks are helping to advance U.S. and Canada to a clean zero-emission vehicle transportation system. I'm very proud to say Electrify America continues to rank #1 in quality and customer satisfaction. Even with our rapid network expansion, quality remains a top priority. In fact, the network was named the 2020 Best-in-Test award winner for EV charging by 2 independent organizations, a great recognition for our quality and, of course, for our strong team. Our history, years of testing and learning have placed us at the cutting edge of electric mobility. We lead through innovation. Much of the fast-charging technology you see across the market today was pioneered by Electrify America. For example, we have the most powerful network with charging speed up to 150 and 350 kilowatts. We have developed innovative and customer-focused technologies like plug and charge. The customer simply connects the charger to the EV. And it starts. No credit cards, mobile phones or membership cars needed. There is so much more to our story. But right now, I would like to close by saying we are proud of our work in expanding the EV charging network, and we look forward to the next chapter of our company's future. Our investment of $2 billion is the largest ever for public ultra fast charging in North America, and we are absolutely committed to expanding the Electrify America and Electrify Canada charging networks to help move us to a zero-emission vehicle transportation system, and we are confident this commitment will pave the way for more electric vehicles in North America. Thank you. And now back to Wolfsburg.

Thank you, Giovanni. I really like to use this special minute to say thank you, thank you, thank you, Giovanni and his team. Because what you see here, the 3,500 in '21. It's 3,500 charging points -- fast charging points -- existing charging -- fast charging points in states. This is a perfect job. And we -- and I'm really curious, Giovanni, to see more from your team to hear in the next week and months as you create boost plans, you are expecting to do in the next months for the states. Congrats again for you and your team. After China and States, back to Europe. What we will have in Europe today and tomorrow? We have a huge population, about 500 million people. We have big cities, and we have more or less 3 million EVs. So we need also a charging structure. It will be a mixed story because we have different nations, different needs, different locations. And how we handle that? You can see in the first step is a nice [indiscernible] my colleague, Oliver Blume, from Porsche is taking care about IONITY. Let us see what IONITY is doing.

Thanks, Thomas. Electromobility is a key topic for Porsche. By 2020, 1/3 of all new cars that we supplied in Europe was electrically powered. Our aim is to make this over 80% worldwide in 2030. Therefore, fast and convenient charging is a basic request, driving and using only electric power without any variable range. That was a goal of IONITY in Europe when it launched in 2017. It's a joint venture between BMW, Daimler, Ford and Porsche for the Volkswagen Group. IONITY is now represented in 20 European markets. On average, we have put a new high-powered charging station into operation every 3 days. Contracts with more than 40 location partners have ensured rapid expansion of the IONITY network along the most important routes across Europe. Around 21-gigawatt hours of electric energy has already been charged at IONITY stations so far. This energy has made it possible to cover more than 100 million kilometers on electric power alone, and this is entirely carbon neutral because IONITY exclusively uses sustainable generated green electricity. IONITY today operates the largest open high-powered charging network in Europe, and it is the only charging network in the world with 100% charging power up to 350 kilowatts. But this is only the beginning. IONITY will further develop and optimize its network of high-powered charging stations so that charging becomes even more convenient. And IONITY charging station, every 150 to 200 kilometers from Spitsbergen to Sicily, means that the company has achieved an important milestone. The network will soon include more than 400 charge parks. In the period up to 2025, the joint venture will focus on 4 main areas. First, a better charging experience for customers. The charge parks will be made even more attractive through the construction of roofs and additional service offerings. Second, we are expanding the sites that are already particularly busy. Third, a more dense network, plans include increasing the number of charging stations across all markets. The last main area is growth. IONITY will expand to additional markets, starting with Poland, Portugal and Estonia, which are about to go live. Regardless of where or how Porsche customers want to charge the electric cars in future, we'll offer a solution. Home charging is Porsche's comprehensive product range, offering convenient charging for our customers. Dealer charging describes the equipment at all Porsche centers with high-powered charging hardware. We want to provide fast charging with up to 350 kilowatts at our dealerships, more than 300 already do. Destination charging already list 1,800 charging points at premium partners worldwide. These include exclusive hotels, restaurants, golf and tennis clubs, and the network is constantly expanding. With highway charging, Porsche will supplement the IONITY network with its own high-powered charging facilities provided for our customers. We are currently working on the details of this concept, which is to set up Porsche's charging stations along the main European traffic routes and motorways at locations that are particularly popular and highly frequented. We will select locations that are especially attractive so that customers can be sure of the most comfortable and fastest long distance travel experience possible. Each station will have between 6 and 12 charging points. The plan is to provide a charging capacity of 350 kilowatts or more. The unique design of these stations is of great importance so that customers can appreciate a special character. This includes a simple approach with cell phone entry and exit options. The charging process can be started conveniently regardless of where the car is parked. The high-quality launch areas of our innovative safe service facilities to ensure a pleasant stay during the charging process. The charging area will be covered so that our customers enjoy optimum protection in all weather conditions. The concept will supplement the IONITY network. The aim, [indiscernible] added value-based on a Porsche charging experience for Porsche customers.

Thank you, Oliver. As the videos have already shown, building up charging infrastructure is team work. So we want to take it serious and want to ensure that missing high-powered charging infrastructure is no longer a reason not switching to electric vehicles. Today, the Volkswagen Group announces a real big boost program. By 2025, we will expand public fast-charging points by factor 5. In concrete numbers, more than 18,000 charging points we will install with our partners in Europe. So we are partnering for success, and we believe that this will accelerate e-mobility to a new level. So we start now with our first partner, [Foreign Language].

We think that the cooperation between industries, in particular, between the automotive industry and the electricity industry is fundamental in order to drive growth of this new way of mobility based on electricity. This cooperation needs to go deep into all the technological aspects of the charging infrastructure and the charging systems of all the cars. Through this, we will be able to fully decarbonize a very important segment of the transportation industry. And so we are very, very focused on cooperating with the industry of automotive manufacturers around the world. We have a very, very deep cooperation with the Volkswagen, Audi Group. The first cooperation area in which we are working is, of course, the charging infrastructure. We are shareholders of [indiscernible] together with Volkswagen. [indiscernible] is a company that has an aim to offer to all owners of electric cars a seamless experience in charging across different platforms. So it's -- if you want a platform or platforms in which charging experience can be easy and very broad across different countries. So for us, [indiscernible] is a very important endeavor. We, in addition to that, are offering to [ recharge ], which is charging initiative, Volkswagen, full access to all the [indiscernible] charging infrastructure in Italy. And soon, we will open the Spanish infrastructure to the same organization. So we are cooperating with the group, with Volkswagen Group in the charging infrastructure at this very moment in all possible aspects. The importance of the high-powered charging is critical for the development of electrical mobility. High-powered charging is any charger that has a power rating that exceeds 100 kilowatts. And this is something that we are focused now to work on all the networks in which we have a presence because it is an infrastructure that lacks presence widely in Europe and around the world. So it's a big missing gap, on which we need to focus in order to bridge this gap. We made a study with the Volkswagen Group on the country of Italy. As the following results, we established that -- looking at the circulating fleet of about 5 million electricity-driven vehicles by 2030, the public infrastructure network of Italy needs to be strengthened and it needs to becomes more dense. And also, we know that we have to be prepared for a continuous change on the technology because the evolution of the technology during these 10 years will be pretty important. The study also indicates that the high-pressure charger, high power chargers needs to be present within urban cities -- urban territories. So within the centers and the surrounding areas of the cities. They need to be present in -- along the routes used by commuters, and they need to be present in high-transit highway. The aim is that this is a facility, the high-powered chargers, that is targeted -- is targeting people that do not have the convenience of having a charger at home or a charger destination in the office or where they work. So they need to charge on their own. And this cannot take a long time. So we are going now to establish a presence of HPCs in these areas, so cities, commuting roads and high-transit highways in order to enable people that have this need to charge in a short time. We have established Rome as a starting point for this effort. The first HPC center has been established on the 11th of March. Here in Rome, there are 4 350 kV rating chargers. It's in [indiscernible] 212. This has been inaugurated, and it's now ready to operate. I have to add that, for example, an high-powered charger would charge a Volkswagen ID.3 in about 20 minutes. So it's a very fast-charging infrastructure for a car that is a medium-sized car, which is today having a big success in the market. So it's a good moment to start putting down this infrastructure in Italy today.

Thank you, Francesco. Isn't that electrifying? This is a really perfect fit for Italy. We are sure that we can provide, with this partnership, our customers sufficient high-power charging in Italy in and around the cities, commuting roads and highways. And that was only the first part of our boost Europe trip. So let's move to Spain. Here, SEAT and Volkswagen partner with the energy provider, Iberdrola. [Foreign Language] Ignacio. The stage is yours.

[Foreign Language] Hello, our partners in Wolfsburg. Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to be part of this power day, but what we are celebrating is not just a day. It's a new era. They're a power of electrification. The 21st century will be the century of electricity as the 20th century was the century of the oil and 19th century was the century of coal. We all need to be part of this revolution. This is why green utilities like Iberdrola has been investing in renewables networks energy storage for the century are now joining forces with industry leader of Volkswagen to accelerate the decarbonization of the economy. And I see positive impact for the environment and quality and biodiversity and, of course, for the economic recovery and the creation of million of sustainable jobs or around Europe. Together, we have the technology, the skills and the knowledge to create a more sustainable model for everyone. This strategic guidance between Iberdrola, Volkswagen and SEAT is a very important step in this path. Together, we are creating new mobility hub, allowing more and more citizens to benefit from the advantage of electric mobility and secular economy. [ However, ] it's a real pleasure for me to sign this agreement. [indiscernible], Iberdrola's role in the energy transition, which has been leading for more than 2 decades. And it also reminds me my times in battery industry in Germany almost 4 decades ago when I led [indiscernible] battery [indiscernible]. I assure this partnership will serve as a platform for other strategic ventures in many other countries. I am looking forward to do it. Let's now sign this historical agreement. [Foreign Language] Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot, Ignacio. This is, in every respect, a powerful performance. And there's even room for a bigger story. So now let's move to the U.K. and announce our strong partnership with bp. We're already starting in 2021 an impressing program. We start in the U.K. and in Germany and will expand to all other countries bp is active. Please, Bernard, tell us more about it.

Hello, everyone. I'm Bernard Looney from bp. It's great to join you for VW's Power Day. I'm just -- sorry, I can't join you in person. By now, you will have heard about the strategic collaboration we're working on with VW to expand ultra fast charging across Europe. I believe it's a significant step, first, because this has the potential to be great news for consumers. More and more people want to drive electric vehicles, but people are also understandably anxious about range, about where and how to find charging points, about how long it takes to charge a battery. So the world needs more chargers, and it needs faster ones. This deal would help do both and give consumers a fast, convenient and accessible charging experience. And by expanding BP's already large global charging network, a network we're looking to grow to 70,000 by 2030, they'd be able to go to a familiar site. Often, just a short ride from home with welcoming staff and where it's easy to plug in and charge quickly. And while they're waiting, they can grab a coffee or pick something up for dinner. Second, this is potentially great news for the planet. It would make EVs much more accessible, helping VW to reach its ambition to increase sales of battery EVs over the years. And by using as much renewable energy as we can to power these chargers, it would help bp deliver on our ambition to become a net 0 company by 2050 or sooner and to help the world get to net 0. Finally, this could be great news for VW and bp as well as our investors. VW is one of the world's leading car manufacturers. We love what they do. We love how they are so focused on constantly making their cars and their technology better and better. We aim to do the same with our convenience and mobility services. So together, we would be able to give drivers the best possible experience. For more than a century, we have helped our customers get around. We now have more than 10 million customer interactions every day across our 19,000 retail sites around the world. And because of that, we know our customers' needs are evolving, and so most our business offer. That's why electrification is at the heart of our convenience and mobility strategy. With this collaboration, both BP and VW can do what we do best while also giving us the chance to learn from each other. So there's plenty of reasons to get excited about this announcement. The one thing left to say is thank you to everyone at VW who made this possible. And by signing this memorandum of understanding, we look forward to a long and productive future working together. Thank you.

Great message, Bernard. Thank you very much. I'm also really excited about it. That's a great commitment. Nearly half of the overall program that we announced today will be provided by this partnership. So I'm really happy that we have you on board. So when we look at the overall boost program that we announced today, I want to point out some additional points. Regarding the sustainability, of course, all these charging stations will be provided with renewable energy. And to ensure that our customers feel comfortable, we want to ensure that all charging points are plug and charge. So you just plug in, and you're charging. You don't need to care about cars or what have you. And with the whole amount of 18,000 charging points that we now will install with our partnerships, there is no waiting, no searching, no worries any longer. And 18,000, that means coming from 3,500 right now that we really increase the high-powered charging by factor 5. So factor 5, that's really amazing from my point of view. And it is, overall, what we expect to be 1/3 of the overall infrastructure we need in 2025. I think this is really a commitment that we have undergone here. So -- and now we've talked a lot about our charging infrastructure that we will install. Maybe we now have a look at the products that we, as Volkswagen, provide for that. Thomas.

Thank you, Elke. One of our products will be this nice guy here. What is the idea behind? This is if you have a garage, this guy will carry a battery pack behind him, will be connected automatically to a car and then charge the car. And afterwards, it would take it back and recharge the battery pack. And if there's nothing to charge, he will maybe clean the garage. This can be a next possibility. So this is what we are bringing out in '25. But as we've told, we have a huge and really strong charging infrastructure program. What is our flagship product? This is -- will be that one here. This is our flagship product, what we will roll out in Europe. This is an interesting technology because it's a battery pack inside. That means we are disconnecting the charging process from the grid what is, in some countries, really big problem. Disconnecting it gives you a flexibility to put it on locations where you want. We have 2 times or 2 D/C charging points here on this. It's 150 kilowatt, power bank for a car. And I'm really happy that we started production in China and in Hanover in parallel to support the strong plan you have been shown here. This is our flagship. And now on our in-home charging. We have our own company, Elli, is coming up with a wall box like that one here, a smaller one for home charging. What is actually also in the market you can see and buy it now. And after that, what is a big story behind becoming to this trend? That's BD wall box. What means BD wall box, okay? Can you explain us a little bit what is the wall box? And what is the miracle behind that? Because we are bringing new interface from the car to the house. But this is your part. You can explain it much better. Thank you, Elke.

Yes. Thank you. We've talked a lot about how we enable the energy transition by providing enough charging facilities. We have now seen the great products. But now let's change the perspective. Let's talk about the car becoming part of the energy system. So far, the car fueled with gasoline was just useless while standing around parking. But now our battery electric vehicle will become a key element as a smart and digital charging device. So PV generates more power than you need in your home. Just store it in your ID. And what you can see here is Elli, Thomas just already introduced our subsidiary for electrifying a life. And what we do here is that we do with the data platform. We connect the intelligent home with the intelligent car. So we not only take into account the necessities you have in your home, but we combine it with the mobility patterns of the car. And with that, we enable our customers to save money and, of course, reduce the carbon footprint. The car has a mobile power bank. This becomes the game changer. Just imagine the possibilities of integrating a huge intelligence storage into the energy ecosystem. The idea of bidirectional charging is born. This is what Thomas just explained with our bidirectional wall box that makes it happen. So in the near future, our electric cars will not only be capable to store energy but also to provide energy. So the MEB, our EV platform will offer bidirectional charging in 2022. Bidirectional charging will enable car owners to become their own energy provider. We will provide the brain an intelligent home energy management system connected via the cloud with the intelligent car. The sun is not shining. You need energy. Just take it from your power bank. And of course, you don't have to compromise on your daily mobility. Taking an ID.3 with 77-kilowatt hours capacity, we will be able to power your complete house for more than 5 days, average daily driving included. Really cool. But the Volkswagen Group will not stop at this level. We want to scale up smart storage approach to fleets, condos and industry. We will combine the local intelligence of the homes, condos or industrial buildings with the global intelligence of the cloud. Combining our mobile power banks with the intelligent energy management system using all relevant data, we will significantly reduce the need for grid expansion and, therefore, the cost. We believe that this will significantly improve the carbon footprint and the energy bill. We have started the first pilot project already at a brand-new apartment complex in Wolfsburg. More than 1,000 apartments with 3,000 to 4,000 people living in it, provided with the latest smart energy system powered by green energy from PV, equipped with 270 wall boxes and a local storage of 2-megawatt hours. So by doing so, we will harness solar energy at its best. And now let's have a look at the national level. Today, PV and wind turbines provide a lot more green energy than the grid can absorb. Just as an example, in Germany, in 2020, we lost a total of a 6,500 gigawatt hours. So not kilowatt hours, not megawatt hours, 6,500 gigawatt hours by turning off wind turbines and PV due to missing storage capacity. So that's enough energy to charge and drive 2.7 million [ bets ] already, that's the whole vehicle stock of Hamburg, Berlin and Munich together. So we are not talking about not having enough renewable energy. We're talking about making use of the already existing energy we have. And this is not only true for Germany, but all over the world. I mean just have a look at the [indiscernible] in California. We are currently wasting a lot of green energy, and I'm convinced we can do better. And battery systems are the right solution to do so. Why does this matter? A renewable energy system will need a lot of storage capacity to capture the wind when blowing, to capture the sun when shining. We, at Volkswagen, are ready to leverage our knowledge on a bigger scale to accelerate the world's transition to renewable energy with large-scale storage. And we can also improve our current footprint by reusing car batteries for big-scale storage. We will give the batteries a second and very useful life. As you can see here, big scale storage is already an integrated part of the closed loop. It improves our carbon footprint, and it supports our goTOzero 2050 strategy. Volkswagen has all it needs to play a vital role in the future and the system. We have deep insight into the mobility patterns of our accounts. We have a profound understanding of energy markets, and we are directly connected with our customers in their cars. What we will do? We will integrate the cars as mobile power banks. We will focus on intelligent energy management, being it on home, on condo or industrial level. We will integrate large storage system. We will connect to the grid and renewable generation. And we will integrate all this via the Elli cloud, fully digital and data-driven. Volkswagen will become the bridge between the mobility and the energy domain, a win-win situation. Thomas?

Yes, Elke. Thank you. Thank you, Elke. Thank you for this impressive presentation.

Thank you.

Let us have a small look what are the key findings out of this second pillar, energy. We have a global boost plan for charging infrastructure, and we have presented to you today a huge program of partnerships. Happy to have IONITY and Iberdrola and bp close on our side. We will expand with these partners the fast-charging infrastructure. And we have [ a lot of ] partners what is important to be fast. The car in the future will be part of the energy system of the house of the private customer. So let us do the next step of the car. We are looking and investing and developing storage systems, small ones, as charging infrastructure -- for charging infrastructure or big ones, as you have seen. And this is important for us also as a second life opportunity for cells and battery systems from the first pillar. And it's all cloud-based. It's digital. It's the new world. It's the biggest transformation in that Volkswagen Group. That was the second pillar after the battery [ retail ] and battery system. Charging and energy are the main 2 pillars of the powerhouse of Volkswagen. We are really coming now to the end of this event. I'd like to thank you, the whole team, for the organization. It was a fantastic professional one in a record time. Thanks a lot for the whole team. I'm really proud to be part of the power of 600,000 people of Volkswagen. That is the most impressive power you can imagine worldwide. We will do this. We'll work that. And you will see in the next week and months, there's a lot more of charging energy and sales and systems we are doing for. The rollout of EV. Our vision and our mission, with the right energy management and the intelligent storage systems, 1 day, charging will be for free. This is we are working for. We are trying, shaping mobility for the generations to come. And every vision and mission starts with a first step. So I'd like to sign today the partnership programs for rollout of the infrastructure here on this desk from my side. And now I'm really happy to welcome back on the stage Mr. Herbert Diess to sign that finally and give a strong commitment to the world where Volkswagen is, transformation this company. Thanks a lot. See you soon, guys. Herbert, it's up to you.

Many thanks, Thomas and team. We have talked about what is under the chassis, future battery technology, future cell strategies. Now let's take a look at the use cases for our technology. Today, our customers can buy all-electric cars across all segments, from volume to premium to sports cars. Ralf from Volkswagen, Markus from Audi and Oliver from Porsche will now present the highlights to you.

Ladies and gentlemen, the ID.4, our first fully electric SUV. And after the iconic ID.3, our second electric car based on the MEB. Isn't it a real eye catcher? Athletic proportions, clear flowing design, short overhangings and huge wheel base. With its striking body design, it offers spacious interior, displays, infotainment and assist systems are cutting-edge solutions. It showcases our signature strengths, developing innovative and highly desirable electric cars, affordable for many. And by the way, I've been driving an ID.4 myself since December. And wherever I go, this car turns a lot of heads. This week, the first ID.4 models have arrived at dealerships in the U.S. In Europe and China, we begin to hand over to customers next week. Now the ID.4 starts a journey around the world, and we keep the ID.4 always fresh with the capability to be updatable over the year. This year, we want to sell 150,000 units over its entire life cycle. We plan to deliver more than 2 million to customers. Therefore, this model is key for the profitability of our electric offensive. Further, its role is to scale fast our MEB platform, a USB made in Volkswagen. Ladies and gentlemen, with our ID.4, we want to conquer. We want to electrify the compact SUV segment. This is the world's largest and still growing market segment. So far, this compact SUV class is the home turf of the combustion engine. With our ID.4, we want to electrify it. Our ID.4 will redefine the SUV experience for our customers. They get all the benefits of an SUV, but silent, carbon neutral and with a real electric punch. Switching to mobility has never been more attractive. The new ID.4, let's start its journey around the world.

Welcome back at Audi. As you can see by the model around me, for us, e-mobility is not a future vision but reality today. Our e-models are an integral part of our lineup. And last year, we almost doubled deliveries of our battery electric models. We achieved that with the Audi e-tron, which delights more and more customers, and it was a global market leader in its segment in 2020. Launched by the end of 2018, the e-tron is our first fully electric car. It's electric all wheel drive delivers great performance on any terrain. It was completed by the e-tron Sportback, a dynamic SUV model offering a range of up to 452 kilometers according to WLTP. This year, we will build on the success of those 2 models with new fully electric cars. Firstly, e-tron GT. It stands for strong performance, high efficiency and is perfectly suitable for everyday use. My 2 personal highlights are the highly agile and adaptive air suspension. It supports both the dynamic drive and the excellent comfort level. And certainly, the electromechanical steering, it is sporty and direct, but also smooth and precise. And the new one will be the Q4 e-tron, which we will reveal in April. The Q4 e-tron will be an entry model into the electric world of Audi based on the MEB platform. By 2025, we are planning to offer more than all 20 all-electric models that we are now putting on the road year after year.

100% electric, 100% dynamic, 100% fit for adventure. This is a new Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo. The Cross Turismo is based on the Porsche Taycan, our first purely electric sports car. In 2020, we delivered the Taycan as planned to more than 20,000 customers. It has already won more than 50 international awards, including the award for the world's most innovative vehicle that's more than any other Porsche ever did during its first year on sale. The DNA of the Cross Turismo, uncompromising dynamics, a highly emotive driving experience powered by an innovative electric drive with 800-volt architecture. The performance figures speak for themselves, 0 to 100 in just 2.9 seconds. Top speed up to 250 kilometers per hour. Its range according to WLTP is up to 456 kilometers. And thanks to a charging capacity of up to 270 kilowatts, 100 kilometers of range can be added in just 5 minutes. In terms of recuperation, the Taycan has been the benchmark right from the start. The Cross Turismo Turbo S can recuperate up to 290 kilowatts. This means that we have once more raised the bar. A high-tech off-road chassis with all-wheel drive and adaptive air suspension is standard. It rides 20 millimeters higher than the Sports Saloon. The optional off-road design package increases ground clearance even further by 30 millimeters. The 2 PSM machines and the 2-speed transmission of an additional advantage for off-road driving, they can be controlled with extreme speed and precision. This allows the driver to modulate power delivery very effectively and attraction, optimizing [indiscernible] control, ensures much better progress over light terrain and when setting off. The Taycan Cross Turismo is the most versatile and practical Taycan we have ever built to date. It stands for mobility that is both sporty and sustainable, and it reflects the distinctive pioneering spirit that has always set the Porsche brand apart. That is something we are truly proud of. That's it for today from [indiscernible]. It was a great pleasure to be part of the Power Day. Enjoy the rest of the show.

We look forward to bringing our new technology into our new e-cars and into scale to Europe, to China and to the United States. Our transformation will be fast. It will be unprecedented. The transformation will be bigger than anything the industry has seen in the past century. So thank you for joining us on our journey, and bye-bye.