VW details 'Transform 2025' long-term brand strategy

The company will restructure its entire core business in the next four years, preparing for significant industry shifts through 2030.

Volkswagen has disclosed additional details of its long-term restructuring strategy, now known as Transform 2025+.

The German automaker wants to become a 'top of volume' automaker across the globe, leading in overall sales volume while maintaining a premium lineup. The strategy centers around an SUV offensive in the first stage and an electrification wave in the second. At a deeper level, the new products will be crafted around a new design concept and positioned within a more uniform global brand system.

"As a volume manufacturer, we intend to play a key role in the breakthrough of the electric car. We are not aiming for niche products but for the heart of the automobile market," said brand chief Herbert Diess. "By 2025, we want to sell a million electric cars per year and to be the world market leader in e-mobility. Our future electric cars will be the new trademark of Volkswagen."

The company will trim its current lineup, eliminating poor selling models and excessive variants, to free up more than €2.5 billion ($2.65 billion USD) to invest in electrified models. Connectivity services are expected to contribute €1 billion ($1.1 billion USD) per year by 2025.

In North America, VW wants to become the dominant automaker with an expanded range of large SUVs and sedans to better engage American tastes. In the second stage, the company will bring its new EVs to the region and kick of local production of MEB-platform models from 2021.

The brand's management aims for a significant increase in sales revenue over the next decade. Perhaps more importantly, the company wants to double its operating margin from less than two percent in 2015 to four percent by 2020, eventually reaching six percent by 2025.

"Over the next few years, Volkswagen will change radically," Diess added. "Very few things will stay as they are."