BERLIN, July 7 (Xinhua) -- German car manufacturer Volkswagen wants to claw back market share from U.S. rival Tesla by producing cheaper electronic vehicles, Herbet Diess, chairman of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand told press on Friday.
While Volkswagen remained the world's largest carmaker by sales in 2016, California-based Tesla has succeeded in cornering large parts of the hotly contested market for electric vehicles.
"We regard Volkswagen as the company that can stop Tesla, because we have capabilities Tesla does not have today," Diess told Xinhua, emphasizing Volkswagen's global presence and production facilities, with the corresponding capacity for the simultaneous introduction of technologies on a global scale.
Announcing the company's intention to release a range of cheaper vehicles in the segment, Diess said that Volkswagen would stop Tesla "at the line of 30,000 euros.(34,000 U.S. dollars)" He noted that the critical question was whether the carmaker would succeed in entering the mass market.
Tesla began the serial production of its first vehicle in the affordable price range, the "model 3" on Friday.
Experts expect electric vehicles to gradually substitute petrol and diesel-fueled vehicles, which are a leading source of CO2 emissions contributing to climate change. French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday that his country would ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040.
Diess expects electric mobility to experience its breakthrough in 2020, coinciding with the launch of VW's new electric I.D. range. (1 euro = 1.14 U.S. dollars)
