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Volkswagen has once again received a top score of five stars for the Golf in the Euro NCAP safety test (European New Car Assessment Programme). The European consumer protection institution awarded very high ratings in all areas examined. The compact Volkswagen model was particularly impressive when it came to the safety of adult occupants, children and vulnerable road users, as well as in terms of its assist systems. Its standard equipment now also includes the centre airbag for the front seats. The latest Golf thus comes equipped with a comprehensive safety concept that satisfies the new, more stringent test procedure. As such, the Golf remains among the best in its class.

The Golf has passed its latest safety inspection with flying colours. After Volkswagen’s most successful model was already awarded five stars in 2019 in line with the Euro NCAP standard valid at the time, it has now also had its impressive level of safety verified in the modified version of the test procedure, which has been in place since 2020. Even though its previous rating would have been valid for another three years, Volkswagen decided to bring the safety level of its most successful model up to date – and have it tested according to the new, significantly more stringent standards. Out of the 21 tests in total, 14 were newly carried out according to the updated procedure – and to great success. Euro NCAP’s Secretary General, Michiel van Ratingen, said: “Most vehicle manufacturers tend to ride it out, some may even consider safety cutbacks to maintain competitiveness. So it is excellent to see Volkswagen continually improving the safety of the Golf, to keep abreast of the latest developments and keep pace with competitors.”

One important safety feature here is its new centre airbag for the front seats, which is now included in the Golf’s standard equipment. In the event of a side collision, this helps to prevent possible contact between the heads of the people sitting in the first row of seats. An additional standard lap belt tensioner for the front row of seats enhances safety even further. In the category of “Protection of Adult Occupants”, the successful compact model scored an outstanding 88 percent out of the possible points available.

The Golf achieved a result of 87 percent for “Protection of Children”. This rating is based on three important aspects: In addition to the protection provided by child restraint systems in the event of a frontal or lateral impact, the focus here is also on the options for safe installation of child seats of various sizes, as well as the equipment that a vehicle offers for the safe transportation of children.

In the “Assist Systems” category, the Golf impressed with 79 percent of the maximum score. Among other things, the autonomous emergency braking system (AEB) performed well in tests involving a response to other vehicles. The driver warning system (Driver Alert) and oncoming vehicle braking when turning function – both of which are standard equipment – also made a positive contribution to the result.

In addition to occupant protection in vehicles, Euro NCAP also examines how well automatic emergency braking systems can protect vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists in the event of an impending collision. In this category, the Golf – which is equipped with Front Assist autonomous emergency braking as standard – received a score of 74 percent.

Volkswagen therefore underlines its high standards of safety and continues its run of success in the Euro NCAP: In March 2022, the ID.5, Polo and Taigo all received five-star ratings. Prior to this, the ID.4 and compact ID.3 achieved the highest ratings in the Euro NCAP in April 2021 and October 2020 respectively. In 2019, the T-Cross also received top marks alongside the Golf.

The Euro NCAP assessment programme has been a stringent benchmark for the safety level of new vehicle models in Europe since 1997. It provides car buyers with up-to-date information on the safety of popular new models.The test procedures and requirements for standard assist systems and passive safety are stepped up at regular intervals – around every two years. Details on the individual tests are publicly available at www.euroncap.com.

Article source: www.volkswagen-newsroom.com

PowerCo, the new battery company of the Volkswagen Group, and Umicore, the Belgian circular materials technology group, announced today the founding of a joint venture for precursor and cathode material production in Europe. From 2025 onwards, the joint venture will supply PowerCo's European battery cell factories with key materials. By the end of the decade, the partners aim to produce cathode material and their precursors for 160 GWh cell capacity per year, which compares to an annual production capacity capable of powering about 2.2 million full electric vehicles. Cathode active materials are crucial for a successful powertrain transition towards e-mobility as they are the key technological lever for battery performance, as well as the biggest single contributor to overall battery cost.

The long-term partnership centers on the production of precursor and cathode materials in Europe, which are strategically important input materials central to battery value creation. Unter the terms of additional agreements, Umicore and PowerCo will collaborate on the sustainable and responsible sourcing of raw materials, an area in which Umicore is an industry leader. In this context, Umicore will be also providing refining services to PowerCo. At a later stage, based on Umicore’s technology and know-how, both partners aim to include elements of refining and battery recycling into the scope of the JV.

Thomas Schmall, Group Board Member for Technology at Volkswagen AG and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of PowerCo SE, said at the signing of the JV: "Cathode material is an indispensable strategic resource for battery production, accounting for roughly fifty percent of overall cell value. Immediate and long-term access to extensive capacity is thus a very clear competitive advantage. We are setting up a sustainable, transparent supply chain with high environmental and social standards, localizing value creation here in Europe.”

Umicore CEO Mathias Miedreich: "This partnership is a strong signal of recognition of our product and process expertise and a testament to the success of our strategy to establish sustainable industrial-scale, closed loop battery materials value chains in key regions. We are supporting our customers on their path to electrification right from the start, and are very pleased to partner with PowerCo and support Volkswagen in their fast transformation towards sustainable electric mobility.”

Production at the JV is scheduled to start in 2025 to supply PowerCo’s Salzgitter factory, reaching an annual capacity of 40 GWh in 2026. Both partners target to grow the JV‘s annual production capacity to 160 GWh by the end of the decade, based on market and demand development. The production site search is still ongoing.

Under the terms of the agreement, both partners will jointly control the JVand will equally share costs, investments, revenues and profits. The JV will give both partners a significant first-mover advantage in the fast-growing e-mobility market in Europe. Together they plan to invest EUR 3 billion into new materials production capacities.

The partnership will provide PowerCo, at significant scale, with secure and cost-competitive access to Umicore’s innovative, sustainably sourced and tailored high-performance battery materials for its unified cell strategy in Europe. It will allow PowerCo to benefit from Umicore’s proven production capabilities as well as from its upstream expertise. It will in turn provide Umicore with secured access, through firm take or pay commitments, to an important part of the European demand for EV cathode materials at guaranteed value creative returns.

The JV is designed to meet both partners’ profitability and return criteria and will unlock for each side significant synergies and economies of scale. Umicore’s IP and know-how will be made available to the JV through a license agreement to ensure its leading technology position.

PowerCo CEO Frank Blome commented the contract signing: "The availability, cost and technical performance of battery cells are key requirements for the successful ramp-up of e-mobility. By building up substantial production capacities, we are securing the rapidly growing demand for battery-grade materials for our main customer Volkswagen AG in terms of volume and at optimal cost."

Jörg Teichmann, PowerCo Chief Procurement Officer, emphasized: "We are consistently entering the holistic value creation of the battery. A supplier industry for battery materials on the scale required does not yet exist today. We are changing that through our long-term cooperation with Umicore as a global market leader for the key materials used in cell production."

Ralph Kiessling, EVP Energy & Surface Technologies at Umicore: “Through this agreement, we are bringing in our long-standing and proven expertise in the battery materials value chain, while gaining secured access to substantial sales volumes. Moreover, the JV will unlock significant cost and operational synergies with the Umicore Group, hereby strongly contributing to Umicore’s 2030 Return on Capital Employed ambitions expressed at our recent Capital Markets Day.”

The transaction remains subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. The name of the joint venture has not been decided yet and will be disclosed at a later point in time.

Article source: www.volkswagen-newsroom.com

The Volkswagen subsidiary Elli, which oversees all activities involving charging and energy in the Group, has become a partner in the sustainable bonus programme offered by &Charge. The goal is to consistently improve the charging experience with the help of customer feedback and to provide money savings at the charging station. Elli charging-tariff customers as well as users of SEAT and CUPRA Easy Charging, ŠKODA AUTO Powerpass and, in future, Volkswagen We Charge will benefit from the partnership as they will immediately be able to redeem the &Charge kilometres they have collected for Elli charging vouchers.

Users collect the needed &Charge kilometres by completing various activities using the &Charge app, a leading platform that combines smart user engagement with value-added services related to electric car charging. This works by, among other activities, shopping in one of the 1,500 partner shops across Europe &Charge (and-charge.com), evaluating charging stations and enriching charging station data. Drivers of electric cars who provide, for example, live information on the &Charge app about the charging infrastructure and the recently completed charging process itself will receive a reward of at least 10 &Charge kilometres for each contribution. Users can now exchange their collected &Charge kilometres for Elli charging credits worth €4 (50 &Charge kilometres) and €20 (250 &Charge kilometres). Credit can be redeemed in the Elli, SEAT, CUPRA, ŠKODA AUTO and Volkswagen charging apps.

Actively participating in activities and using the &Charge app are also rewarded with points called “enthusiast points”. These points will enable users to obtain additional benefits on the &Charge platform on a step-by-step basis.

Simon Löffler, CCO of Elli, says: "Partnerships like the one with &Charge help to establish and successfully shape a customer-friendly overall ecosystem for electric cars. Active feedback from customers is extremely important, and we at Elli have always been convinced of this. We therefore appreciate &Charge's innovative approach and look forwardthat in future customers will exchange &Charge kilometres for charging vouchers."

Simon Vogt, the CSO and co-founder of &Charge, stressed one point: “Working with Elli represents a huge milestone to us. We are working together to make the charging of electric cars more affordable and are contributing to the success of e-mobility. &Charge and Elli are two companies that focus on creating a seamless and holistic charging experience for drivers of electric cars. This partnership represents an important step towards a real charging experience. It will set new standards in the e-mobility eco-system.”

About &Charge

&Charge is a leading platform that combines smart user engagement with value-added services related to electric vehicle charging. The technology company has created unique plug-and-play value-added services (software as a service) within the global e-mobility eco-system that target B2B customers and offers every e-car driver an end-customer app that makes charging cheaper, more reliable and more engaging. The smart reward mechanism from &Charge honours users for their activities by providing &Charge kilometres (1 kilometre = €0.08) and is the incentive for the &Charge Crowd (e-car drivers) and their daily involvement in supplying crowdsourcing data (feedback, evaluations and additional information about charging and charging stations). This intelligent reward mechanism is based on the first sustainable bonus programme for free charging.

&Charge attaches great importance to sustainability and has been a climate-neutral company since its foundation in 2019. The company avoids, reduces and offsets the CO2 emissions produced not only by its own business activities, but also by its users.

About Elli

Elli is a brand of the Volkswagen Group and a provider of energy and charging solutions. With a workforce of more than 250 employees, the company takes care of the things that matter to customers at the touchpoints between energy and mobility. Elli’s aim is to make the benefits of the shift to green

energy accessible to everyone – easy and hassle-free. The company intends to offer a seamless and holistic energy and charging experience for all electric car drivers and fleet managers. Elli was founded in 2018 and has offices in Berlin, Wolfsburg and Munich.

Article source: www.volkswagen-newsroom.com

Never before has the internationally acclaimed Guggenheim Museum in the Spanish city of Bilbao welcomed so many guests as during the last months. Responding to the strong interest of visitors, the museum even offered special opening hours during the summer months. The reason for this outstanding level of attraction was the exhibition “Motion. Autos, Art, Architecture” which linked the history of mobility and the design of urban environments with ideas of how we come together and live in the future.

Volkswagen supported the multi-faceted “Motion” exhibition project as leading partner in Bilbao. Widely renowned for its unique building created by Frank O. Gehry, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao achieves a big success in the same year in which it celebrates its 25th jubilee. 750,000 people visited “Motion. Autos, Art, Architecture” while it had been on view for slightly more than 23 weeks from April 8 until September 18. The exhibition was designed by the esteemed architect and visionary Lord Norman Foster who curated it together with Lekha Hileman Waitoller and Manuel Cirauqui from Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

The presentation comprised seven sections, which allowed the audience to undertake a journey through the history of the car and its revolutionary influences on technology, aesthetics and social evolution. Among the artworks on display where two iconic motorcars from Volkswagen’s own collection: a 1951 Volkswagen Beetle and a 1962 Volkswagen Type 2. In addition, Volkswagen participated in the creative process involving Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason and resulting in an innovative audio installation which was then exclusively presented to visitors of the exhibition in Bilbao.

Volkswagen also supported the “Future Mobilities” conference that took place in Bilbao on September 12 and 13. In the final week of the exhibition, students and researchers from international universities came together to discuss visions and concepts that had been developed at 15 universities in 13 countries and which had been publicly revealed as part of the exhibition. The conference was also attended by design strategists from Volkswagen who exchanged views on future scenarios for living environments and mobility options with experts from the Royal College of Art in London, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Yale University, the Swiss-based ETH Zurich, the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, the Hongik University in South Korea and Japan’s Tokio University among others.

Benita von Maltzahn, Director Cultural Engagement at Volkswagen comments on the success of the exhibition: “Our intention as a partner of culture and the arts is always to make creative work accessible to a wide audience. Lord Norman Foster’s striking idea which came to reality in Bilbao offered an immersive reflection of the links between art, architecture and design. And we join the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in thanking all these people who were able to see this special exhibition.”

Lord Norman Foster, curator: “I am delighted by the record numbers who have attended the ‘Motion’ exhibition, especially as I understand that its unique mix of autos, art and architecture has introduced a new kind of visitor to the Museum. It is testimony to the attraction and power of design, the patronage of Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the support of Volkswagen as one of its principal sponsors.”

The support for the exhibition project is part of Volkswagen’s international work to assume social responsibility. It includes the commitment to join partnerships and collaborations letting as many people as possible discover the power of creativity and strengthening a sustainable impact of culture and the arts. In this role, Volkswagen strives to foster an open, forward-looking and engaging dialogue within the society.

Article source: www.volkswagen-newsroom.com