As carmakers from GM to Ford vie to match Tesla’s electric-vehicle sales, Volkswagen Group, the world’s largest auto manufacturer by revenue (it also makes Audi, Porsche and others), aims to overtake them all by 2025. With the specter of the 2015 emissions scandal still looming, the German corporation has earmarked $54 billion for electric projects over the next five years, with plans to build six battery factories and 18,000 charging stations throughout Europe. In 2020, it sold 231,600 electric vehicles—more than triple the number it moved the previous year. That was still less than half the EVs Tesla sold last year, but VW thinks it can sell 1 million in 2021.
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