In 2021, Volkswagen showed the strength of an established car company. According to the 2021 financial report, the Volkswagen Group delivered 8.6 million vehicles worldwide, down 6.3% year-on-year. However, sales revenue increased by 12.3% year-on-year to EUR 250.2 billion, profit before tax of EUR 20.1 billion, an increase of 72.5% year-on-year, and profit after tax of EUR 15.4 billion, an increase of 74.8% year-on-year.
You know, due to the superposition of factors such as the epidemic and lack of cores, more than 10 million fewer cars have been sold worldwide. At the same time, Volkswagen is undergoing a comprehensive transformation, burning money in electrification and intelligence. In 2021, the R&D costs of the Volkswagen Group's automotive business increased by 12.2% year-on-year to EUR 15.6 billion, while the proportion of R&D costs to sales revenue remained at 7.6%.
In this case, it still maintains a substantial increase in profits, which shows the depth of its bench. The method is very simple, that is, throttling and open source, on the one hand, to control the cost, on the other hand, to make more money, volkswagen to the shortage of chips to Audi, Porsche and other high-profit models, naturally earn more. Because it is not bad money, the comprehensive transformation can be steadily advanced, and sales are also rising.
▍Annual sales exceeded 450,000, and electric Volkswagen ranked first-line
Looking at the global market, electric Volkswagen is actually a proper front-line camp. In 2021, the Volkswagen Group delivered a total of 452,900 electric vehicles worldwide, nearly doubling the year-on-year growth. Among them, the Volkswagen brand was 369,000 units, an increase of 73% year-on-year, including 106,000 plug-in hybrid models, an increase of 33% year-on-year, and 263,000 pure electric models, an increase of 97% year-on-year.
At present, there are only 3 companies whose global sales of new energy vehicles can exceed Volkswagen, namely Tesla 936,000 vehicles, BYD 594,000 vehicles and SAIC-GM-Wuling 456,000 vehicles, of which SAIC-GM-Wuling mainly sells low-priced cars, and the gold content is much weaker, so it is not too much to say that Volkswagen is one of the top three electric vehicles. In Europe and the United States, Volkswagen is a brand that directly competes with Tesla for the first place, the first in Europe in 2021 and the second in the United States, and has also turned a profit in the United States.
However, China's own brand new energy vehicles are developing rapidly, but the globalization ability is weak, so China and the world are two patterns, and Volkswagen's performance in China is far less eye-catching than that of fuel vehicles. In 2021, Volkswagen's electric vehicles will total about 100,000 in China, of which more than 70,000 are ID. series pure electric vehicles, which have not reached the pre-designed target of 80,000-100,000, but the development trend is still good and is in a steady rising stage.
In 2022, Volkswagen has set a target of 140,000 units in China. On the basis of the ID.4, ID.6 and ID.3 series of existing models, the ID. series will also push new cars, and at least one new pure electric model will be launched every year by 2026. At that time, the pure electric vehicle models of the Volkswagen ID. series will basically cover every mainstream market segment.
▍Platform strategy is still a killer, and the public frequently amplifies moves
In the era of fuel vehicles, Volkswagen can be in the first camp, and the successful platform strategy is inseparable, and the era of electric vehicles is the same, Volkswagen is the first mainstream traditional giants to build a proprietary platform for electric vehicles, and the current main ID. series is the product of the MEB platform.
Although there is no advantage in the competition between the ID. series and independent brands in the Chinese market, in the context of Tesla and independent brand new energy vehicles, the mainstream joint venture brands have not come up with any competitive products, and Volkswagen's ID. series based on the MEB platform has achieved monthly delivery of more than 10,000 in only 9 months, turning passive into active, in China, which accounts for about half of the world's new energy market share, the prospect is very promising.
In addition, in addition to the Volkswagen Group's brands, the Group will continue to expand the scope of application of the MEB platform, and will expand cooperation with Ford to produce a second pure electric model based on the MEB platform, and the production of Ford's MEB models will double to 1.2 million units in the next six years.
Counting up, the current electrification platform of Volkswagen Group already has mlB evo platform, MEB platform, PPE platform, J1 platform, of which the PPE platform is mainly a high-end, high-profit pure electric model, and pure electric Porsche Macan is the first work under this platform. FAW and Audi are building a PPE platform plant in Changchun, and will start production of three high-end models in the early stage.
However, these are not the end points, and Volkswagen is developing a new SSP platform. It is expected that by 2026, volkswagen group, a new highly expandable pure electric platform SSP platform, will be officially launched, the first model of the Volkswagen brand Trinity.
The Volkswagen Group will invest 2 billion euros to build a new plant adjacent to the main plant in Wolfsburg to implement the SSP platform, which will shorten the production time per vehicle to 10 hours after the plant is completed. At that time, the Volkswagen Group can shorten the vehicle development cycle by 25%, and the future vehicle project cycle is expected to be shortened from 54 months to 40 months.
▍ Intelligence is a short board, and the public spends money to make up for the class
Regarding new energy vehicles, the industry recognizes that electrification is the first half, and intelligence is the second half. In July last year, Volkswagen released the NEW AUTO strategy to transform the Group into a sustainable software-driven mobility service provider by 2030.
According to the information released at that time, Volkswagen will integrate the advantages of the four core technology platforms to create synergies for all passenger car, light commercial vehicle brands, and some truck models, from the universal pure electric vehicle architecture to the CARIAD global software platform, to the large-scale production of independently developed batteries and batteries, and finally to a series of services that seamlessly connect the mobility platform.
From the mechanical control of "pressing steel" to the software control of "writing code", this transformation is more variable and more difficult to achieve than the energy conversion of automobiles from fuel to electricity. So, what efforts has volkswagen made?
Volkswagen's software company CARIAD is the key to the improvement of volkswagen group software strength, since last fall, volkswagen group vehicles have begun to apply CARIAD remote online updates and other new features, has completed more than 56,000 remote online updates. The Group will undergo an important software update in 2022, including the launch of the new Full Journey Driver Assistance System 2.5, plug-and-play functionality, multi-point route planning and upgraded voice control.
At present, CARIAD has successfully integrated Hella's camera software business and cooperated with Bosch to develop L3-level autonomous driving technology. In 2022, CARIAD will enter the U.S. and Chinese markets. CARIAD will launch version 2.0 of the unified software platform in 2025, covering all Brands of the Volkswagen Group.
In order to successfully complete this transformation, the Volkswagen Group will naturally invest 18 billion euros in the fields of electric mobility, hybrid and digitalization by 2026. From Volkswagen's financial report, there is sufficient cash flow to support, in fiscal 2021, the group's automotive business net cash flow of 8.6 billion euros, an increase of 35.4% year-on-year; net current assets of 26.7 billion euros, the same as the 2020 fiscal year, an increase of more than 5 billion euros over the end of 2019.
You know, this money is still on the basis of the Volkswagen Group has made a lot of investment in the transformation of the "new four modernizations" of automobiles from 2019 to 2021. It can be seen that Volkswagen's comprehensive transformation has determination and strength, so the progress is also the fastest, still maintaining the status of the first-line camp on the new track, and the future is still a strong opponent that independent brands need to face.
◆