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At least professionally, Mary Barra and Herbert Diess have a lot in common, even if they are probably worlds apart in their private lives.

She is the boss of the largest American car company General Motors, once the world market leader in the automotive industry.

He heads the European Primus, the Volkswagen Group, which was the world market leader until 2019 and fell just behind Toyota to second place last year.

What both top managers have in common is their mission: Barra and Diess want to drive their corporations into the electric age, and as quickly as possible.

With this ambition, the American, who has been with GM since 1981, has now overtaken the Austrian at the top of the VW group.

Barra has set General Motors an exit date for internal combustion engine production, one that is significantly more ambitious than that of many other manufacturers.

From 2035, General Motors will only sell emission-free vehicles, they have announced.

Like Herbert Diess, Barra used the career network LinkedIn to announce her strategic goals in a kind of manifesto.

"As one of the largest automakers in the world, General Motors wants to lead our industry and our world into a carbon-free future," writes Barra.

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With this announcement, 15 major car manufacturers around the world have now agreed on exit dates for the combustion engine.

According to a calculation by McKinsey, they make up 76 percent of the world's automobile volume.

The consultants sort the manufacturer's commitments into three groups: In addition to GM, Honda (still in the 20s) and Toyota (in the 40s) have announced a sales stop.

Companies like Ford are aiming to sell more electric vehicles than combustion engines in the 1930s.

Volkswagen, PSA and Daimler have announced that they will stop developing conventional vehicles in the 20s.

Source: WORLD infographic

The niche for the internal combustion engine will therefore become significantly smaller in the coming decades.

However, experts and automobile managers repeatedly emphasize that the internal combustion engine will have a longer life in some regions of the world than in China, the USA and Europe.

In South America, Africa and India in particular, it is assumed that the infrastructure for electric vehicles will not be built as quickly as in the large markets.

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Diess also explained its VW strategy in an extensive paper on LinkedIn last year.

At Volkswagen, it is assumed that the sale of internal combustion engines will end by around 2040.

According to the managers, this point in time would be enough to make the entire group climate-neutral by 2050 - not just the products, but also the production.

General Motors is lagging behind Volkswagen

Volkswagen was one of the first automotive groups to commit to this goal years ago.

It is the goal of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

General Motors, which started the electric era much later with the political announcements, is now passing it and announcing its own climate neutrality by 2040.

The vehicles should not only be emission-free in operation, but also in production.

Up to now, batteries for electric cars have often been made with large amounts of coal electricity, which means that the new cars come onto the market with an enormous “CO2 backpack” and burners only lose their overall carbon footprint after several tens of thousands of kilometers.

VW wants to become the market leader in electromobility

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In industrial terms, however, GM is not lagging behind its competitor Volkswagen.

Earlier this month, Barra announced an extensive portfolio of electric vehicles - from small cars to parcel transporters - at the CES technology fair.

Even the huge Hummer off-road vehicle comes on the market in a highly motorized electric version.

Like VW, GM uses its own platform for this, on which a wide variety of electric vehicles can be manufactured for all brands.

The manufacturer has a head start in the field of batteries: Together with the South Korean LG group, the Americans are building a battery factory in Ohio, which will produce standard modules that are processed in the same way in all vehicles.

That saves a lot of costs.

Volkswagen, on the other hand, currently has a confusing range of around two dozen different battery types, for which production has to be laboriously adjusted depending on the model.

In the group, however, everyone agrees that this diversity should be reduced quickly.

Because in the race with established corporations and Tesla, Diess set the goal of making VW the market leader in electric mobility.

The US will now play an important role in this.

After Donald Trump's reign, during which hardly any progress was made in terms of electromobility, the country is now accelerating towards the climate-neutral age.

This is indicated by the first political steps taken by President Joe Biden, who on the first day of his term in office decided to re-enter the Paris climate agreement.

His transport minister, Pete Buttigieg, had already clearly pushed for a turnaround in electromobility in the presidential election campaign.

As a first - not only symbolic - step, Biden has announced that the entire vehicle fleet of the federal government will be converted to electric cars.

This involves around 650,000 vehicles, which of course cannot be replaced in one fell swoop.

The delivery vans of the American Post Office are also affected by this measure.

Biden also stipulated that the vehicles must be made in America.

These resolutions offer an opportunity for German automakers who manufacture in the USA in their own large plants.

Volkswagen is already converting its plant in Chattanooga (Tennessee) for the production of the small electric SUV ID.4, and other models can also be created here.

Ralf Brandstätter, head of the Volkswagen brand, is expecting a lot from the market.

"There are many indications that electromobility will soon be promoted more strongly," he told WELT, referring to the USA.

"We started early and also have a competitive advantage in the North American market." The ID.4 appears to be very attractive for customers there.

“The pre-sale cars were sold out in less than eight hours,” said Brandstätter.

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A consequence of the diesel scandal that was actually intended as a punishment is now proving to be an advantage for VW in the USA.

After the fraud, Volkswagen committed to building a nationwide network of charging stations for electric cars in the country.

This network, expanded and operated by the subsidiary Electrify America, is, according to the company, the largest open fast charging network in the USA, with 530 stations and 2200 charging points.

Tesla, whose superchargers are only reserved for their own cars, has around 900 stations in the USA.

Volkswagen is not only playing a role in the provision of vehicles, but also in the infrastructure in the USA.

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