Volkswagen approved a 34-billion-euro ($51 billion Cdn) spending plan on Friday that accelerates its efforts to become a global leader in electric cars. The world's largest carmaker by unit sales will spend the money on electric cars, autonomous driving and new mobility services by the end of 2022, it said after a meeting of its supervisory board. The carmaker's projected spending is significantly bigger than its pledge two months ago that it would invest more than 20 billion euros on electric and self-driving cars through 2030. Until it admitted two years ago to cheating on U.S. diesel emissions tests, Volkswagen had been slow to embrace electric cars and self-driving technology. The group said its total investments in electric vehicles capacity and projects will amount to about 72 billion euros by 2022, confirming an earlier Reuters story.

Source: CBC News November 17, 2017 17:48 UTC