At the 2013 Geneva Motor Show, the Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Group, Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, said that the Group’s ecological restructuring, also announced in Geneva a year ago, is “proceeding to schedule”. He added: “We are orienting Volkswagen towards maximum energy and resource efficiency. We are well on our way to making our Group the world’s leading automaker in environmental terms.”
The Volkswagen Group is now setting itself even more ambitious targets: “Volkswagen is committing to reducing the CO2 output of theEuropean new car fleet to 95 grams per kilometer by 2020. This makes the Volkswagen Group the very first automaker to commit to this ambitious target.
According to Winterkorn: “That corresponds to a fuel consumption of less than 4 liters (70 mpg UK or 58.8 mpg US) – across all segments and vehicle classes. This is a Herculean task calling for the best efforts of all our 40,000 developers. We can do it.”
Winterkorn also stated that Volkswagen would reach its self-imposed target of reducing the CO2 output of its European new vehicle fleet to less than 120 gram per kilometer by 2015. Volkswagen intends to outperform by more than 12 gram the figure required by law for its vehicle fleet.
The Volkswagen Group already offers its customers 245 model variants with emissions of less than 120 grams CO2 /km, over 60 percent more than two years ago. And 36 model variants already have emissions below 100 grams CO2 /km, almost 40 percent more than in 2011.
Winterkorn underlined that the development of increasingly efficient technologies, powertrains and vehicles and environmentally sustainable production would account for more than two thirds of the total investment of €50.2 billion planned by the Group up to 2015. The Group was moving forward “in leaps and bounds”towards its ambitious target of making all 100 production facilities throughout the world 25%more environmentally compatible by 2018.
In terms of the key indicators for energy and water consumption, waste production, and CO2 and solvent emissions, the Group has on average made environmental savings of 10 percent per vehicle produced over the past two years.
The Volkswagen Group reiterated its strategic goal of becoming the world’s most environmentally sustainable automaker by 2018.
