Audi increases investment towards becoming all-electric

The German car manufacturer Audi plans to invest around 18 billion euros (20 billion dollars) in the development of electric cars by 2026.

The company's CFO Juergen Rittersberger said on Thursday that the focus over the next five years would be on producing fully and partially electric models.

Audi plans to increase spending on research, development and investments in tangible assets to a total of 37 billion euros by 2026.

Audi wants to have more than 20 fully electric models on offer by 2025 and to phase out the construction of internal combustion engine cars by 2033.

In 2030, the company wants to deliver 3 million cars a year, up from 1.7 million last year.

The company, which is a VW subsidiary, employs 60,000 people in Germany. It decided at the end of 2019 to cut 9500 jobs at its plants in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm within five years.