In 2018, the company an-
nounced an audacious new target:
It will be carbon-neutral by
2050—not just in manufacturing
its cars but also, far more signifi-
cantly, in the operation of its cars
over their lifetime on the road.
VW executives are still trying to
figure out how to meet this prom-
ise—how, for instance, to ensure
that those who buy its electric cars
charge them with clean, rather
than dirty, electricity, particularly
in China, where the power system
is especially coal-dependent. At a
minimum, though, the company
will need to do something pretty
radical: It will have to make the
vast majority of its new-vehicle
lineup electric.
It’s hard to overstate the epic
nature of this shift. Which is why
I went to Wolfsburg to meet the
man directing it.
Thomas Ulbrich started at
VW three decades ago as an
auto mechanic. Today, with his
shaved head and powerful build,
he retains much of that factory-
floor persona. But now he wears a
blue suit and commands an office
alongside other board members
high up in Volkswagen’s executive
tower. Ulbrich appears to operate
at one speed. In a conventionally
powered VW GTI, it would be
sixth gear. Now, of course, Ulbrich
drives an E-Golf, one he had the
Wolfsburg paint shop coat in a
particularly badass matte white.
He lets me drive it; the interior
smells of his favorite cigarillo
brand, Clubmaster, and, when I
press the power button, the speak-
ers start pumping out “Cryin’,” by
Aerosmith.
As we talk in his conference
room, Ulbrich sheds his jacket,
paces like a caged lion, and
downs an espresso from a demi-
tasse. Not long into our conversa-
tion, he lets loose a fact that takes
me a good couple of seconds
to process. Given the lead time
required to design a new car,
VW will begin developing, in the
next few years, what will be its
last-ever vehicle powered by an
internal-combustion engine—in
the lingo, an ICE. Ulbrich tells
me he expects to have the follow-
ing heart-to-heart with engineers
who will lead that effort: “Gentle-
men, do it good, do it right—do it
really good and right—because it
is the last time you are starting to
develop an ICE platform.”
VW has recently let fly a flurry
of statistics about its electric-car
intentions, each brasher than the
last. By next year, it will begin
producing two cars on the MEB
platform: a hatchback evocative
of the Golf, called the ID.3, and
a small SUV, the ID.Crozz. By
2022, it will be building MEB cars
at eight factories: two in China,
including the one in Shanghai;
one in the U.S., in Chattanooga;
and five in Europe. By 2023, it
will have spent $33 billion on
its electric-vehicle transition. By
2028, it will have sold a cumula-
tive 22 million electric vehicles
across 70 different models.
The first MEB production cars
will start rolling off the assembly
line in November. They will be
built in a plant in eastern Ger-
many’s Saxony region, an auto-
manufacturing stronghold, in a
picturesque town called Zwickau.
I went for a look.
The Zwickau plant historically
produced, every year, 300,000
Golfs, Golf Sportwagons, and
Passats, along with about 10,000
auto bodies for Bentley and
Lamborghini, luxury brands that
VW owns. But, over the next two
years, it will ramp down produc-
tion of combustion cars—except
for the Bentley and Lamborghini
ELECTRIC GOLD RUSH
THE Y S AY
“DRESS FOR
THE JOB
YOU WANT.”
WE SAY
“READ THIS.”
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