Volkswagen's flagship Audi division will increase spending on new models, technology and plants through 2019 in order to push its goal of passing German rival BMW as the top luxury-auto manufacturer in the world.
Audi said this weekend that it will push up investment in the car-making operations by 2 billion euros to a record 24 billion euros over the next five years. The automaker contributes 40 percent of operating profit in Europe's biggest automotive group, according to Reuters.
Nearly seventy percent of spending will be assigned to developing new vehicles and technology like emission-cutting plug-in hybrid cars, the automaker said in a company statement. Audi is also working on purely electric vehicles to compete with Telsa Motors and BMW.
"We place top priority on sustainable growth," Chief Executive Rupert Stadler said. "That's why we are making large investments in the innovative areas of electric mobility, connectivity and lightweight construction."
More than half of the funds will be spent on Audi's two German facilities in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm. The plants account for half the automaker's nine-month output of 1.34 million cars, Audi said to Reuters.
Audi is currently the world's second largest luxury automaker and is looking to expand its model range to 60 from currently 50 by 2020. The company will spend over 1 billion euros on new factories in Mexico and Brazil.
Ingolstadt-based Audi said on Saturday it will hire another 850 workers in Mexico next year where the Q5 sport-utility vehicle will be assembled from 2016.
Audi announced investments of 22 billion euros over the 2014 through 2018 period under its previous budget drawn up a year ago, according to Reuters. VW announced auto investments of 85.6 billion euros through 2019 more than a year earlier, even as the automaker pushed to cut its costs as a core brand.
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