Volkswagen will no longer develop cars with an internal combustion engine after 2025

Volkswagen, through chief strategist Michael Jost, has revealed a schedule showing that the manufacturer will develop the last car models with an internal combustion engine by 2025.

Michael Jost says in an interview with the German Handelsblatt that this means that from 2026 for the last time models with a combustion engine will gradually come onto the market. The company will then switch entirely to the production of electric vehicles.

In practice, the fact that 2025 is the last year in which Volkswagen will still develop cars with combustion engines means that the last of these models will be on the market in 2032. This means that in 2040 the last CO2-emitting cars will be sold. Jost thinks that by 2050 there will no longer be a car with a combustion engine, taking into account the requirements of the Paris climate agreement.

Until now, Volkswagen is the only fully electric vehicle to have the e-Golf and the e-up!. This will change in the coming years, as the ID family will be released based on the MEB platform. These ID cars are several completely new electric models, the first of which should hit the market in 2020. To this end, Volkswagen is investing heavily in converting some of its own factories.

With this plan for the end of the internal combustion engine, Volkswagen is lagging behind the schedule of Volvo, for example. The Swedish manufacturer reported in July 2017 that from next year all new Volvo models will have an electric motor. That does not mean that the combustion engine will disappear completely; Volvo will also release hybrid models from 2019. Mazda claimed in August 2017 to have achieved a breakthrough in making a much more economical petrol engine, which means that this Japanese brand will probably continue with combustion engines for longer.