For quite a while, a lot of the world's biggest car makers have chosen to avoid lingering too much on the wild success Tesla have experienced with their EVs and the subsequent euphoria.
However, Volkswagen have gone and defied the trend — acknowledging the growing American marque as a direct rival in the EV race in an interview with Auto News.
“In the old world it is Toyota, Hyundai, and the French car makers. In the new world it is Tesla. Tesla belongs among the competitors which has abilities that we currently do not have,” said VW Chief Executive Herbert Diess.
It's no secret of course that part of why Volkswagen, as well as the rest of Volkswagen AG, are pushing the go button on EVs across all their brands is to offset the 'costs' of Dieselgate.
In the interview, Diess also discussed the advantage Tesla have, given that around half of their engineer workforce are also software experts.
“This shows that we need to significantly improve,” he said. “We can do this. We measure ourselves against Tesla quite deliberately. Our goal: Using our abilities not just to catch up, but even to overtake.”
Volkswagen's plan — or at least part of it — is for their upcoming range (pun certainly not intended) of I.D.-branded EVs to hit a sweet spot in the market. From there, Volkswagen's aim is to be the first manufacturer to produce more than one million EVs.
With Tesla still experiencing production woes, I'd hesitate to bet against Volkswagen in this race.