Volkswagen Commercial to invest 1.8 billion euros in 2019

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles have announced a large scale investment as part of its 'Grip 2025+' strategy.

Billed as the most extensive change in the history of the brand, Volkswagen Commercial aims to transform the company from a pure carmaker into a "mobility service provider" with new products, revamped factories and a wider audience reach.

Speaking at a conference in Hannover in Germany, CEO of Volkswagen’s Commercial division, Dr. Thomas Sedran, said that company must adapt to consumer trends in order to survive.

"Our strategy is a response to changes in the industry – we will transform ourselves from a pure carmaker to a mobility service provider,” he said.

“We as a whole industry are facing the biggest change in our history - e-mobility, digitisation, autonomous driving, as well as this trend towards new transportation systems.”

“We are developing from a pure carmaker to a mobility provider. To this end, we are investing more than 1.8 billion euros this year."

Volkswagen Commercial are updating their Hannover production facilities.

Coming off the best sales results the brand has ever achieved, Volkswagen Commercial is beginning 2019 with investments in both product and its production facilities in Hannover.

"We can shape the transformation at the peak of the industry, because we are financially strong and can exploit synergies within the Group.”

The brand also formally addressed its new alliance with Ford, which will see the two companies co-develop commercial vehicles together, including the next-generation of Amarok and Ranger, a new shared city-sized van and further develop Ford’s Argo autonomous driving brand.

“Volkswagen and Ford compliment each other perfectly in our regional strengths - as you know, Ford is strong in North America, while we are strong in Europe. In the future, production capacities will be bundled, that way the different demands of our customers can be better served and production will be in larger volumes, allowing scalability and cost savings.”

Volkswagen will produce more

Over 500,000 Volkswagen Commercial vehicles were delivered to customers in 2018, with particularly strong sales coming from South America and Europe, though political unrest in Turkey affected results in the Middle East. 

Do you think that with Ford involved, Volkswagen will rise to the top of global commercial sales? Tell us what you think in the comments below.