VW boss admits speed of Tesla’s expansion surprised him

theguardian.com:

Volkswagen’s chief executive, Herbert Diess, has admitted the pace of Tesla’s expansion took him by surprise, and the German carmaker may struggle to overtake its upstart US rival.

Diess is leading the world’s second-largest carmakeron a rapid increase in electric vehicle sales, but he acknowledged VW may be unable to catch up with Tesla and that it would be a “tight race”.

“We didn’t expect our main US competitor to be so fast,” he said, speaking via video link from Germany at a Financial Times car conference on Monday. “It will be tight but we won’t give up on it. I would still see a chance that by 2025 we are first. At least second.”

Under Elon Musk, Tesla has become by far the world’s largest carmaker by stock market value at nearly $900bn (£729bn), compared with VW’s €89bn (£76bn). delivered 936,000 cars in 2021. Of the 8.9m vehicles VW sold last year, 452,900 were pure electric. Toyota has been the world’s largest carmaker in sales terms for the last two years, but has decided to opt for a slower transition away from fossil fuels.

The chief executives of Volkswagen and Tesla appear to share an unusually warm personal relationship, with Musk in 2020 test-driving one of VW’s ID.3 electric cars with Diess in Germany. In October, Musk joined a conference call of VW executives at the invitation of Diess to talk about how to speed up the transition to electric technology.

Tesla is rapidly