Volkswagen Ag chief Executive Herbert Diess said Tuesday it will upgrade its wolfsburg, Germany, factory to use the latest electric car technology and software procedures. The announcement came a day after vw's supervisory board said it would give its full support to The company's transformation strategy.

        The plant, which is owned by Volkswagen, is the world's largest car manufacturer, producing more than 800,000 cars a year. According to people familiar with the matter, The aim is to reduce the wolfsburg plant's production time per car to 10 hours, less than half the expected assembly time for the golf and Tiguan models currently produced at the plant. Mr Dees also reiterated that VW must cut its fixed costs sharply to remain competitive.

         Vw said in a statement that the Wolfsburg plant would become a "pioneering factory" for highly automated electric car manufacturing and would create the vw brand's flagship electric model. Vw gave no further details about the car, saying only that it will be similar to Audi's Artemis technology project. Audi's Artemis technology project, code-named "Landjet", is developing flagship electric vehicles for Audi, Porsche and Bentley.

         Volkswagen plans to create a management board position in information technology, Dees said at an executive meeting on Tuesday. The company is evaluating potential candidates and plans to make a decision next year.

        Deese said that while VW has weathered the COVID-19 crisis relatively well so far, its costs remain too high and some competitors' profits have proved more resilient. Vw had earlier announced a 5 per cent reduction in fixed costs by 2023.

       It is worth noting that in the battery field, Volkswagen has already had a layout. Volkswagen formed a joint venture with American startup Quantum Scape in June 2018. This summer, Volkswagen announced that it would invest an additional $200 million in further capital raising to take a roughly 20% stake in Quantum Scape.

        Traditionally, batteries have been made by suppliers, but that is not immutable, says Deese. According to previous media reports, VW may need 40 battery factories in Europe if the EU green deal is approved and the company plans to mass-produce batteries.

        The second-generation battery technology, developed by Quantum Scape, relies on a solid electrolyte rather than a liquid electrolyte, and the anode uses lithium metal instead of graphite. Quantum Scape says the two companies could work together to build a 2 gigawatt-hour plant if it can scale up production.

         As a result, VW could get advanced batteries as early as 2024 that could boost the range of its electric cars by 80 per cent, supporting it as a market leader. Dees said that whoever buys the second-generation batteries first will have a strong competitive advantage.