Thank you, Emma, and good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to all of you to our half-year conference call. It's a joint media and investors and analysts call. The investors-analysts call will be moderated by my colleague, Rolf Woller, Head of Treasury and Investor Relations, and myself, Sebastian Rudolph, responsible for Global Group Communications. With us today is our CEO, Oliver Blume, and our CFO, Arno Antlitz. Welcome to both of you. Good to have you on this call. Before we start, let me give you some remarks. We have already published. You should all have received the press release, the interim report for the first six months, and all other PR-related materials. If you do not have them yet, you can also find them on our website, volkswagen.com, or just give us a call, and we send them to you directly. Now let me hand over to Rolf, who will give you a brief rundown of the next minutes, hours. Rolf, the floor is yours. Thank you, Sebastian. Welcome to everyone, also from my side. We will start with Oli, who will talk about the highlights of the first six months and the second quarter, and after that, we have Arno. He will take a closer look at the financials, as always. We will host a Q&A session for the investor and the analyst community, moderated by myself, followed by the Q&A session for the media community, and that will then be hosted by Sebastian. As already mentioned during the pre-close call, we have extended today's Q&A session for the analysts and investors, so that any question which has been not answered at the CMD will have enough room for an answer today, and obviously also your questions, which might have arisen on the latest press announcement here on XPeng and Volkswagen partnership. After the session, we will have then a brief break and then continue with the media Q&A. As a reminder of the safe harbor language and other cautionary statements that will govern today's presentation, which you will find on page 2, I would like to encourage you to read the disclaimer carefully, since all forward-looking statements are qualified by this language. I, however, do not want to read it in order to have enough time for today's presentation, and with that, I hand over to Arno. To Oli, sorry. No problem. Thank you. Thank you, Rolf. Thank you, Sebastian. Oliver Blume speaking. Good morning, and also a warm welcome to all of you from my side. Let's dive directly into the presentation and start with one of my personal highlights of the first half year of 2023, the Capital Markets Day on 21st of June at Hockenheimring. We were pleased to welcome 200 people on-site, as well as the more than 16,000 guests connected online, and hope you enjoyed the event as much as we did. After an emotional and exciting pre-CMD event, we were able to present to you our group equity story, which is built on six pillars on that day: our new team, technology at scale, unleashed brands, regional leadership, our new steering model, and financial targets. At the end of the main presentation, we asked you the question, which would be the preferred next Volkswagen event of the building blocks of Volkswagen Group's success story? As we promised you can see here the results of the poll. The winner is not totally unexpected: China, head of battery and software. Amongst our brand groups, Brand Group Core made the race. We used the weeks since the CMD to sort the next, the building blocks of the Volkswagen Group success story. After your feedback, we plan to host the next Capital Markets Day in April 2024 at the Beijing Motor Show, and it will deal with our China strategy, including a deep dive into the local CARIAD approach. A save-the-date invite will follow due course. In the meantime, we are working intensely on our strategic target to achieve 10% RRS by 2030, with a range in between nine and 11 RRS go. As part of this work, the team of Brand Group Core will present a first milestone shortly after our Q3 conference call. They will share with you the result of the Road to 6.5 program of Volkswagen brand, which is key to the midterm strategic targets and an important proof point. In the second half of 2024, we are planning to host the Brand Group Core Capital Markets Day to provide further details of the plan to achieve 8% return on sales and 60% cash conversion rate in the midterm to unleash the full potential of the core brands. We are fully aware that we have to deliver on our promise and focus on execution. This was mirrored by your comments during and after the Capital Markets Day. As said on that day, we are on a path towards a new Volkswagen, and we want to take you with us on that journey. Over the last month, we have been taking many important strategic decisions. The cleanup work is done. Now we will focus on execution. We have sharpened the design identities and intensified the quality programs at every single brand of our portfolio. Last week, the group board visited our locations in Mexico and the U.S. to review the status of our North American strategy, including the initiative on Scout. As you already saw in the press release yesterday afternoon, we made progress on our China strategy. I will detail it to you into a minute. After the reorganization of CARIAD, the team is now working on the consequent execution of the 5-point plan, which focus on the successful launch of the E³1.2 software stack. On the Capital Markets Day, you were able to experience our capabilities on autonomous driving with our ID. Buzz AD, we are expanding our efforts on the mobility solutions field with further test activities in U.S. and Germany. As promised, at the Capital Markets Day, Arno will present you solid financials for the first half year of 2023. The list for our upcoming months is full-packed. All brands are working heavily on their performance programs, which should start to contribute to our midterm target in the second half of this year. On platforms and battery, which includes vertical integration of critical raw material, we are working on the execution of our strategies and are developing innovations, such as the dry coating proof of concept to ensure cost competitiveness. We will review their progress at our top management meeting in late summer. We will update you on our progress during the upcoming event of our building blocks strategy. To give us enough time for the Q&A session, let us now come to the detailed update on our China strategy. As said, during the Capital Markets Day on the 21st of June, we want to be and maintain the number one international OEM position and rank amongst the top three players in the Chinese market. For that, we must localize and control our value chain in China. We must increase the regional independency for a faster decision-making process. Last but not least, we must speed up the time to market for our cars. To achieve our goals, we are building our implementation plan around three pillars. First, with the establishment of our 100% tech company, we will strengthen our own development capabilities. We aim to reduce the development times for new products and technologies gradually by around 30%. This is a massive step. Second, local partnerships with leading technology players will enable us to speed up time to market. Third, local product partnerships will ensure tailored and superior ICV product offerings soon. Therefore, we are happy to announce a new strategic partnership from Volkswagen Brand with XPeng and deepen partnership of Audi with our long-trusted JV partners, FAW and SAIC. With this, we gain speed in the Chinese market. XPeng has a unique brand positioning as tech leader in Chinese ICV segment and also as leader in smart ICV tech capabilities, especially in electrical, electronic architectures, ADAS, in vehicle infotainment, and smart cabin software. The strategic collaboration and strategic minority investment of 4.99% includes XPeng developing and providing an 800-volt platform, Connectivity OS software, and ADAS system for use by VW in two VW midsize segment ICV models with a target SOP in early 2026. These additional models will expand the existing MEB product portfolio and tap into new segments in the fast-growing e-mobility markets. The envisaged cooperation will result in an accelerated volume ramp-up, increased competitiveness, and potential to realize synergies for both companies in terms of development and procurement, estimated cost savings of up to 20% and brand enhancement. The MoU also includes the joint development of a new local platform for the next generation of fully connected electric vehicles, as well as technological collaboration on autonomous driving functionalities and connectivity solutions, allowing Volkswagen to leverage XPeng's strong tech stack. The partnership also opens the door to further strategic collaborations on charging network, mobility services, procurement and engineering, and R&D. We are targeting to conclude the full assessment over the next nine months. ICV market in China is experiencing intense competition, therefore, this strategic move will allow us to consolidate our leadership position in this important market. Our strong joint venture partnerships are crucial for our transformation in China. Will allow Volkswagen brand, as well as Audi, to transform successfully. Audi and FAW will complete the existing product portfolio for the new mobility era in the Chinese premium market. Both sides will continue strengthening their cooperation in production and sales. The Audi FAW NEV Company is on schedule and will start production of PPE vehicles for China by the end of 2024. At the same time, Audi is, after the first two successful years of collaboration, strengthening the long-term commitment with SAIC. The jointly developed e-models will be equipped with state-of-the-art software and hardware to provide Chinese customers with an intuitive, connected digital experience in the premium market segment for fully electric and fully connected vehicles in China. We are pleased that we were able to take these important decisions before the summer break. The teams will now going to detailing the cooperations and execute the strategies. We will keep you posted on our progress. Let's now have a look at the delivery situation during the first half year. We are stepping up our deliveries, driven primarily by Western Europe and North America. Deliveries to customers in first half year, 2023, reached 4.4 million vehicles, up to 13% versus the first half year in 2022. While the supply situation has clearly improved, we experienced delay in global logistics, hindering us to deliver our vehicles to customers worldwide, with negative effects on inventories and finished goods. We continue to experience a stable level of order intake in ICE cars. Our order books stands unchanged at around 1.65 million vehicles in Western Europe. Therefore, thereof, more than 200,000 battery electric vehicles. We have sold roughly 322,000 battery electric vehicles in the first half year, 2023, equaling 7.4% of deliveries. The order intake of BEV cars in Europe is at more than 200,000 units and is expected to increase during the remainder of the year, as the availability of BEVs, especially in the second half of the year, is expected to improve and delivery times will shorten. On top, the ID.7 is ramping up. However, we see a slower development of the European BEV market as we felt a certain degree of reluctance from our customers since the beginning of the year. Reasons for this included reduced incentive programs and the reduced purchasing power due to high inflation. Since May, we have seen a slight upward trend in order intake, and in view of the recent significant reduction in delivery times, we expect this positive trend to continue. To act prudently and in line with our value over volume approach presented at the Capital Markets Day, we widened the bandwidth for our BEV deliveries in the running year from 8%- 10%. Thank you very much for the first part, and let me now pass on to Arno to provide you details of our financials. Please, Arno, go ahead. Thank you, Oliver. Also good morning from my side. Now let's move to the financials and the operative business. Our vehicle sales for Volkswagen Group came in at 4.4 million units, up 11%. Excluding China, deliveries went up even 20% to 3.1 million vehicles. On the revenues, we made a stand-up by 18% to EUR 156 billion, driven by a strong vehicle sales in Europe and North America, by healthy mix and continued favorable pricing. Forex had a negative effect on sales revenue of about two percentage points. Our operating result came in at EUR 11.3 billion and a margin of 7.3%. What looks at first class underwhelming is, in fact, a very robust result. Last year's H1 benefited from valuation effects of our commodity hedging outside hedge accounting by a + EUR 0.9 billion. This half year, in contrast, we were burdened by -EUR 2.5 billion. H1 of 2023 show significant progress and a strong underlying operating performance. Our profit before valuation effects from commodity hedging increased to EUR 13.8 billion, resulting in an underlying operating margin of 8.9%. This includes, in addition, about EUR 0.4 billion Forex losses from the deconsolidation of the Russian business and headwinds from raw materials. Coming to the cash flow situation, which has bleakened since we last spoke. The net cash flow generated in the automotive division in H1 2023 totaled to EUR 2.5 billion, mainly due to the continued negative effects from working capital. The cash flow was only at EUR 0.2 billion in Q2 2023. As reflected already at the Capital Markets Day, we experienced additional bottlenecks in global vehicle logistics, with negative effects on inventories and finished goods. Due to the measures we have taken, we expect this to improve during the second half of the year. Clean net cash flow totaled EUR 3.4 billion, significantly below prior year number. Net liquidity at the end of H1 stood at a solid level of EUR 33.6 billion, which represents a truly solid position for a company within an industry in transition. Our net liquidity declined mainly due to EUR 11 billion paid out to shareholders as dividends over the last six months. The decline of EUR 9.4 billion versus year-end was, however, smaller than the cash out for the dividends during H1 2023. Coming to the performance of our divisions in H1. Passenger car divisions delivered EUR 7.1 billion operating result and a margin of 6.7% before special items. These numbers in H1 2023 were negatively impacted by the swing in valuation effects of our raw material hedges of about EUR 3.4 billion from H1 2022 to H1 2023. Our commercial vehicles continued the strong performance. Result came in at EUR 1.8 billion and a margin of 8%. Normalization of used car prices and the changed interest rate environment led to lower operating result of our financial services division. It came in at EUR 2.2 billion. The major driver of our passenger car business are shown in the EBIT bridge. Positive development, volume price mix, as seen during the last quarter, continued, with the biggest increase resulting from volume. Pricing continued to be healthy, mix turned even slightly positive in Q2. Operating result in the first half year was burdened due to -EUR 3.3 billion swing in evaluation effects, mainly from raw material hedges, outside hedge accounting. Negative impact of product costs totaled to -EUR 2.3 billion. We expect this bucket to turn slightly positive for the full year. Fixed costs increased slightly compared to Q1, which is attributable to higher R&D costs and inflation. Coming to the financial steering model. Our Group, the main objective is to effectively unfold the power of our unique setup. Some of the most strongest and fascinating brands bundled to powerful Brand Groups and leading technology platforms. In connections with the Top Ten program, we are managing the group systematically, efficiently, and with a strong focus on execution. Brand Group Core saw a strong uplift in volumes. Sales revenue increased even stronger and grew by 30%. Operating margin at Brand Group level reached 5.5%, including a strong contribution from our North American region. Operating result came in at EUR 3.8 billion. In total, Brand Group Core recorded a EUR 2.6 billion net cash flow. For VW Brand achieved a margin of 3.8%, outlining the task we have in front of us here. Rest assured, the teams are working hard to make VW Brand a solid contributor to the Brand Group Core in the future. They will present their performance program in greater detail to you latest in autumn. Margin of Brand Group Progressive declined to 10% from 16.6% in 2022. This development was heavily impacted by valuation effects from raw material price hedging outside hedge accounting. The underlying margin in H1 2023, before these effects, was about 12%, and therefore only slightly below the strong levels recorded in H1 2022. Lamborghini, Bentley, and Ducati contributed again significantly to the strong performance, and net cash flow came in at EUR 1.9 billion. Porsche followed its track record and remained strong at a 19.3% operating margin. The operating result benefited from improved pricing and better product mix and higher volumes. CARIAD improved sales revenue by 32%, driven by higher license revenues from MAP cars on the 1.1 platform. CARIAD was able to limit losses to previous years, despite continued investment in software platforms at the same time. Net cash flow in H1 benefited by about EUR 1 billion from intra-group income tax refunds resulting of an intra-group allocation. The underlying negative net cash flow came in at - EUR 1.8 billion. PowerCo and Cellco continued to build the global battery business, with cell factories in the ramp-up for Valencia in Spain and St. Thomas in Canada, and the construction of the plant in Salzgitter being fully underway. In parallel, the team is working on innovations, achieving a competitive cost base. With the new developed dry coating process, we can save about 30% energy and 15% floor space going forward. TRATON's positive performance continued. TRATON saw unit sales increase by 22%, with sales terminals up 27%, driven by strong volume expansion, positive price mix, and vehicle services. Operating margin came in at 8.1%, thanks to better capacity utilization and price mix, compensating for higher input costs. Net cash flow saw year-over-year a strong increase, keep in mind that the figure in 2022 was additionally burdened by cash outflow related to legal proceedings of EUR 1.4 billion. At financial services, we saw an overall stable contract volume, slightly lower financing contracts were compensated by more leasing and insurance contracts. Credit loss ratio remained stable at the prior year level, despite the worsening macroeconomic environment. Operating income in H1, 2023, remains at a very solid level of EUR 2.2 billion, even though it's below prior year level. The decline reflects the normalization of used car prices and the changed interest rate environment. Our current R&D and CapEx spending levels reflect the transformation of our company towards electrification and digitalization. At the same time, we keep our combustion engine cars competitive. This leads to a current situation where we invest parallel in both ICE and BEV technologies. This period will last over the next 2-3 years. After this transition period, we will benefit from lower capital expenditures and lower research and development expenditures. R&D expenses in H1 stood at EUR 10.2 billion. R&D ratio stands at 7.8%. CapEx stood at EUR 5.6 billion, and CapEx ratio stands at 4.3%. Given where we stand after six months, we adapt our outlook slightly and see CapEx ratio to come in at 6%, but R&D ratio slightly higher at 8.5%, which leaves to the combined investment ratio outlook unchanged at 14.5% for full year 2023. Coming to the performance of our China joint ventures. After a difficult start in the first two months of the year, the group's delivery figures in March through May were significantly up from the previous year. Looking to the BEV deliveries, we saw a muted start as well into the year, but the second quarter, 90% more BEVs were handed over to the customers than in the same period last year. Sequentially, we saw BEV deliveries almost doubling. In sum, Volkswagen Group China deliveries led to an proportionate operating result of EUR 1.15 billion, down by 18%. The performance lies still within our full year target of up to EUR 2.8 billion as proportionate operative result, which would represent a decline of about 15% year-on-year. Ladies and gentlemen, coming to our outlook. Our H1 performance gave us a good impression of what we are capable of in a challenging environment, and how committed we are to act in line what we presented at the Capital Markets Day. In short, we largely confirm our financial outlook. Based on the current run rate, the outlook for deliveries in full year 2023 has been slightly adapted from around 9.5 million vehicles to a range of 9 million-9.5 million vehicles. We remain fully on track to meet our sales revenue goal in 2023. The underlying margin before valuation effect is running even above our full-year margin corridor and demonstrates the robustness of our business model in a challenging environment. Based on what we've achieved so far, we are confident that we meet our reported margin corridor. Although the supply of semiconductors is improving, the pent-up of demand for vehicles is only slowly moving through the process chain. Currently, the bottlenecks has reached the entire logistics chain to ship finished vehicles. To safeguard our net cash flow, we've taken decisive measures to ensure that we reach the lower end of our guidance of EUR 6 billion-EUR 8 billion in 2023. The topic of cash flow enjoys the highest level of attention of Oliver, me, and the whole board of management. To sum it up, we saw again a very robust performance in a challenging environment in terms of operating result and margin. With the launch of performance program at all brands and our strategic decisions in China, we took some major steps to improve the competitiveness of the Volkswagen Group going forward. We rely on a very solid balance sheet and financials, and based on that, we continue to reform our company with full focus on execution, capturing synergies within the group, and delivery on cash flow. Thank you very much so far, and now I pass back to Oliver. Thank you very much, Arno. Oliver speaking, let me provide you a short summary before coming to your questions. We see a good progress of restructuring, Volkswagen Group, following our 10-point plan. We have still challenges ahead in the transformation, they are different in our 12 brands. Financially, we achieved a robust result in the first half year, half of 2023. In terms of operating result, before special items, we grow 13%, with EUR 13.9 billion. We achieved around about 9% profit margin. In terms of sales, we went up 13%, with 4.4 million units, we grew stronger than the overall worldwide market, we sold over 50% more BEVs in the first half year comparing to last year. We keep on working on our cost structure and improving our cash flow and break-even situation. Our focus lies to unleash the full potential of our 12 brands. The unique portfolio of our brand groups, Core, Progressive, Sports & Luxury, and Trucks, is the backbone of our robust positioning of Volkswagen Group. Overall, our cleanup is done, the main strategic decisions are taken. In the first half of the year, we focus on execution and to establish our performance programs. Yeah, that's a short summary of our situation the first half year 2023. Then I hand over back to Rolf, and looking very much forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you, Ollie. Thank you, Arno. Now to the even more interesting part, to the Q&A session. We have at least one hour and 15 minutes. Please, you don't have to limit yourself this time, but don't exacerbate it, as always. We would start with the first question coming from George, from Goldman Sachs. George, please. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. What I wanted to ask was specifically, what implications this should have for your total investment levels? Obviously, at the planning round, you cited an approval for EUR 180 billion over the next five years. Does this more collaborative approach and leveraging local players provide an opportunity for Volkswagen to reduce the level of investment going forward? Should this be seen as additional and incremental steps on top of the spend that you have already planned? The second question I had was just with respect to the free cash flow during the second quarter. Obviously, only free cash flow breakeven is somewhat disappointing, particularly when we see Stellantis print free cash flow of over EUR 8.5 billion for the first half of 2023. I understand you have major logistics issues, can you give us some insight into when this working capital might unwind, if indeed you think it will unwind at all over the next 12 months? Thank you. George, thank you for your question. First, on the investment side, if you allow me to come back to what we presented on the capital markets day, the EUR 180 billion, there was kind of a pyramid. You remember, we had, like, the basic investment, then temporary investment for increasing competitiveness, and also strategic investment for strengthening our position in the region, specifically U.S. and China. The new models we announced yesterday are fully covered by that pyramid, so they won't add basically, or they won't increase EUR 180 billion for the current planning round. For future planning rounds going forward, we gave you an indication already that once the phase of the parallel investment of ICE business and BEV investments phase out, and we fully concentrate on further development our BEV business, there is a chance to reduce the overall investment. We gave you an indication that we even come from proportionate, we come to basically then 11% and eventually 9% of turnover, which would be rather aggressive, but also in absolute terms, we could see that number going down. In terms of free cash flow, on the second quarter, we are not pleased with the situation at all. That's clear, because, I mean, we had a really strong underlying operating result of almost EUR 14 billion, EUR 13.9 billion, and that didn't really translate into a cash flow. There are two reasons. First and foremost, of course, we saw some investments in terms of R&D and CapEx going forward for the transformation to making our company even more competitive in the future. We discussed that a lot, but we are convinced that we're spending that money wisely. Second, as I said before, a lot of, yeah, cars are basically, or a lot of funds are tied up due to the inventory. I mean, we have great cars, and we would have loved to bring these cars to the customers and to the dealers earlier. Fact is that we move now from a bottleneck of chips to a bottleneck in transportation. We are lacking trains, trucks, truck drivers, not only Europe, specifically also U.S. It's a challenge for us to bring the cars from Mexico to the North American region. We took decisions already to debottleneck, and we are confident that we, from today's perspective, then we can meet our cash flow guidance, EUR 6 billion-EUR 8 billion lower range, so basically EUR 6 billion. Yeah, we are working on these topics. As said before, we are sure that we make significant progress there in terms of increasing the capacity. In terms of orders, we have a strong business. We still have 1.65 million orders on our hands in Europe alone, 200,000 BEVs of that. It's a really an unnormal situation where we have a strong order book and high inventories, and this is really the major reason for that is the transportation. As said before, we took decisive measures to debottleneck. George? Thank you. Okay. Very good. The next question comes from Daniel Roeska from Bernstein. ... Daniel. Gentlemen, good morning. 2, maybe longer-term questions, if I may. Given the comments you made on the China joint ventures and also the corporations with SAIC and now XPeng, could you comment what that tells us about the SSP? I think in the capital markets day you said SSP 2026 plus. Start of production is kind of 26 for some of the cars in China you talked about. You know, is SSP a lot later? How do we think about kind of those initiatives in China and the SSP platform more generally, how it also relates to the other markets? Secondly, on the CapEx holiday, Arno, you just outlined, right, once the double spending on ICE and BEV stops, there's a chance to reduce the CapEx overall. How do you see this in the context of the pace of innovation that's going on in the market generally? Wouldn't you expect that actually for quite, let's say, a longer time, as innovation is very fast also on the BEV side, the BEV investments would need to ramp up and accelerate platform development as well? How much, right, doesn't the BEV share in that plan need to grow even as ICE kind of declines over time? Thanks. Okay, Daniel, may I start with the first part of your question, and then I hand over to Arno. First of all, coming back to the China strategy, we built our China target picture 2030, and the new corporations are one part of this strategy. The main part of our strategy is to do more business in China for China. Therefore, we decided to increase our engineering and capacities in China. We built in our tech co in Anhui, over 2,000 people right now, and we have already built CARIAD in China with quite well success. On the other side, we are aiming for partnerships to offering to our Chinese customers the best solutions they can get in the market, tailor-made for the Chinese market. For example, in autonomous driving, our already announced partnership with Horizon Robotics or infotainment with ThunderSoft, they are only some examples. On the other side, we are focusing on increasing our own battery business. For example, with a PPE company in Changchun, where Audi will start beginning next year with their new PPE models. In our new company in Anhui region, we are starting next year with new NEVs from Volkswagen. Beside of this, we want to speed up in our product offering, and therefore, we decided to build this partnership with XPeng for Volkswagen, bringing two new models in the upper B segment in 2026. We decided to make a deeper partnership with SAIC in Shanghai for Audi in terms of sharing modules, components, and software technologies, also to speed up and making our product range wider for the Chinese customers produced in China for China. Coming to the SSP, we stick to our plan to start with the first SSP level in the end of 2026, and then we are rolling out all the different SSP levels up to the end of the decade. The technology profiles are already defined, and now it's up to execute and to engineer all the details for the product, and we are sticking to those plans, and so we think it fits well together. On the one hand side, coming with PPE, MEB, updates to China, having the partnerships, and then coming to the market in the second half of the decade. I hand over to Arno, to your second question. On your question on the investment spending, let me give a little bit of a more broader perspective. In the EUR 180 billion we outlined on topics, but you could also do a split in terms of R&D and CapEx combined for BEVs and ICE. In this EUR 180 billion, we still have 30% of funds allocated to our ICE business. We think we're spending this money wisely. I mean, at the end of the day, even in 2030, there will be like 50%, 60%, 40%- 50% globally and even like in Europe, 30% ICE business. It's like seven years from today until 2030. We deliberately decided to keep our major platform competitive by then because they are highly profitable today, and they will create significant amount of the cash flow to finance that transformation. That is true for Volkswagen, next generation T-Roc, next generation Tiguan, and specifically for Audi, A4, A6, Q5, Q7. It's also a chance in fading out of these additional funds of 30% that free up some capacity to even speed up the transformation in terms of BEVs, but also frees up some of the funds so that we might be able to lower the EUR 180 billion, or will be able to lower the EUR 180 billion. Second, there's an additional level, not only fading out ICE investments, but also with the strategy to rely more on partnerships. For example, with Mobileye and autonomous driving now, the announcement on XPeng, we also see a more, I would say, investment-efficient approach going forward. A good compromise of being like offering attractive cars to the customers in new segments, and on the other hand, being more, I would say, efficient in our spending. It's basically really phasing out of the ICE investment. Second, approach that relies more on partnerships and smart partnerships should lead to a more efficient way going forward. Okay, thanks very much. Thank you, Daniel. The next question comes from José Asumendi from JP Morgan. Morning, it's José from JP Morgan. Thank you, all. Maybe two questions for Arno, and two for Oli, please. Arno, can you speak a little bit more around the China joint ventures, a little bit more the profitability mix between SAIC and FAW? Is FAW holding up a bit better than SAIC-Volkswagen? You know, where have you seen the biggest impact on the promotions in those two joint ventures? The second question for Arno will be, if you can speak a little bit more around this new line, we need to forecast now, you know, the battery cell. If we think about, let's say, 2023, 2024, what kind of, you know, negative contribution should we expect from this division? What kind of capital commitments, cash flow-wise, should we expect from you in the next, let's say, 24 months? Oliver, please, just a couple of quick ones. On Traton and the free float, do you think this is something that strategically you could consider at some point to increase the free float in the entity? Second, as we think about the ID.2 and the vehicle, the Volkswagen ID.2 you showed us at the Capital Markets Day, can you comment on, you know, when should we expect the ramp-up of this vehicle? Do you think the car overall is competitive in the light of maybe some other Chinese entrants entering the European market in the same segment at probably a little bit more price competitive level and a vehicle size that could be larger than the ID.2? I would like you to please just assess the competitiveness of this vehicle and also the ramp-up. Should we expect this car to ramp up in 25, or can it come a little bit earlier, maybe 2024? Thank you. Yeah, José, I mean, you know, we don't really disclose the individual results of our JVs, but to give you a little bit of flavor, the operative result and the proportion operative result, and also the margin of FAW JVs is stronger than SAIC. This is the case because in the northern joint venture, in the FAW joint venture, we have the Audi, which is a stronger contributor. As you said, Volkswagen Group is more under pressure in the current pricing environment in China. The higher proportion of that results come from the Audi FAW business. That doesn't mean that Volkswagen is not also contributing significantly, but it's more like from the northern joint venture. Also with the decisions going forward, we will see the significant improvement on the V side as well. I would like to reiterate on what we said before. Yes, we have this new product partnerships, but step by step, we will increase the competitiveness of our current MEB platform with Horizon Robotics, with Inca Entertainment, with Thundersoft, and also we're bringing a next-generation iron phosphate battery, which has a much better cost position. This will improve cost position there. In terms of battery, as said, as indicated in the Capital Markets Day, we foresee about EUR 15 billion on R&D and CapEx combined for the battery business. The launch of the first factory will be 2025, that's Gita, and then eventually, Spain and Ontario. From a CapEx burden, the biggest CapEx burden will be like 2024, 2025, 2026, and then eventually, fading out from today's perspective. We gave you also a net cash flow and an operational result indication with a net cash flow break even in 2029 and the operative break even in 2029, and the net cash flow break even in 2030. From then onwards, really a sharp ramp-up in sales and in operative result with this margin from today's perspective, beyond 10%. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Arno. José, I would like to come to the third and fourth question. First of all, Traton. Very clear, the reduced free float has an impact on the market cap development. First of all, for us, it was important doing all the restructuring work for the Traton Group. We have taken some very important strategic decisions, and when we see the development of the operating result and also the profit margin, we see a positive development. Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend the day in Munich and before, I've been at Scania. What we are doing there is considering also important engineering corporations to improve our cost positioning in terms of engineering costs. Therefore, I think we still have some steps to go. What is very promising is I may have the opportunity to test the new trucks there, and I was very patient on the development on the ICEs, but also on electric trucks. The future, I see very positive. We have a very strong order intake in the truck business. So we haven't decided yet to increase the free float because we have priorities in our steps. First of all, is improving our profitability. It is on a good path, then what will come next, we have to consider later. Coming to your question of the ID.2. We presented a design approach of the ID.2 that's by far not the final model. We are still improving. The feedback from our customers and dealers was very positive. On this platform, it's the MEB update, we will offer to our customers a totally improved technology profile in terms of range, in terms of charging time, in terms of entertainment offerings. So, it's very promising what I see already there. stay with the ID.2 only on this platform. We will offer models from Škoda and from CUPRA as well with a pricing range of around 25,000 EUR. What we are calculating right now with a positive profitability. In terms of bringing smaller cars, we haven't decided yet. Might be an opportunity for the future to bringing younger customers to the brand and motivating them to stay to the brand like we did years ago when we entered into Volkswagen brand with the Volkswagen Beetle or with the Volkswagen Golf or the Volkswagen Polo Therefore, we need a strategy, but first of all, we focus on this battery electric vehicles in this range of the ID.2, with a very promising technology profile. Thank you very much. Thank you, José. We are coming over to Tim from Deutsche Bank. Thank you very much. Good morning, guys. I would have three questions. The first one is on the China Corporation, the second one on stuff that primarily you, Oli, but also you, Arno, a bit said at the CMD. When we think about the China Corporation that you just announced, I actually, in contrast to many on this call, think this is a great thing. It's very un-VW-ish, it's very quick and capital efficient, and it's a small price to stay relevant in that market. What I'm asking myself, though, is why do you limit this to China? I mean, the tech element is one point. You may believe that you have superior tech or better tech relative for the European market, but what you clearly miss is a competitive cost structure on your mass market brands. When we look at what Stellantis achieves on the mass market side, it's just far from what you guys are capable of doing, as it seems right now. Why don't you use this platform or other platforms, actually, also for partnerships where you have guys that can produce more low cost and take that also into markets like Europe, maybe more from the cost and the tech angle? Secondly, Oli, you always said multiple times at the CMD that you would want to become more agile and leaner, and you also say that VW is more than the sum of their parts. The downside to a large organization is very obvious. Speed is one of them, focus is another. Why do you believe your job isn't a lot easier if VW was a lot smaller? Can we talk about real benefits between the different brands? In the end, we see that Audi spends almost as much money as BMW and Mercedes, for example. Finally, becoming more agile and focusing on accountability and fostering entrepreneurship all sounds great, and I'm sure it's the right thing to do for you guys. For us, it's very difficult to judge how you implement these ideas. Can you give us some examples of how you ensure accountability and how you would foster entrepreneurship? Thank you very much. Okay, Tim. Let me start with your first question on China corporations. I think you're totally right. That is a great opportunity to come to a better cost positioning. That's what we are aiming in the first step in China. As you know, the ecosystems are different in between the Western and the Eastern world. So we are building our partnerships in both regions. But in our framework agreement we do have with XPeng, there is the opportunity to go out of China. But first of all, we want to establish the China business with a showcase of two Volkswagen cars and then thinking ahead. As I mentioned before, there are much more beside of the platform component and technology business. It's up to mobility services, it's up to charging infrastructure. The framework offers us a wide range of opportunities for the future. I think this is totally the right approach for Volkswagen Group. On the one-hand side, with our strong base, our strong experience on the technology, building cars, but having the right partnerships. We don't want, and we can't do everything by our own, and everything we are doing comes from the customer perspective. We want to offer our customers their demands in the different regions of the world, and therefore, especially these approaches when it comes to infotainment. What we did, for example, with ThunderSoft, in China, or autonomous driving in China with Horizon Robotics, or Arno mentioned before, the Mobileye approach, for the Western world. Picking up the right partners, which are fitting perfectly together, where it is a win-win situation for both of us, and there you're totally right. That's the idea behind... When we have opportunities to offer technologies worldwide, we will do so. Coming to our presentation in the Capital Markets Day, to be more agile, to be leaner, to getting more speed and focusing our business, it's all about entrepreneurship. For me, it is important, building the guideline, from the Volkswagen Group perspective as an investor. First, firstly, I started with the Top Ten program, and that's the first guideline on our operating and strategic action fields. Then I ask all the brands and all the operational organizations to give me their priorities as an entrepreneur. Then we agreed the priorities for each organization, and now all brands and all organization have their framework and can move into this framework as an entrepreneur. So I think everybody has got the freedom to build the business, but on the other side, having very clear targets. We presented the targets on the strategic level in terms of profit margins. Therefore, we gave the method how to build the programs behind to achieve this strategic profit margin situation. Everybody is entrepreneur to build its program, and we will support with our experience how to drive forward the programs. First of all, I see big potential having started this performance programs in all 12 brands. That's the first time in history that Volkswagen Group starts with the same approach with a comparable ambition level in between the 12 brands. That will be a main lever for future profitability to bring the brand over 10% profit margin in the future. On the other side, we have taken a lot of strategic decisions to improve our cost structure. Before we talked about the SSPs in terms of technology platforms, and there we ordered our landscape of SSPs and being able now with three lead engineers, Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche, offering two platform levels, where all our brands can pick their solutions for their segments. That's one example. Next example is our battery cell approach with around about 50% own development, own production, and 50% working together with partners with a unified cell. That will bring us in a unique cost positioning, and that is crucial especially in terms of material cost. There are many more examples how we want to bring Volkswagen Group in a better positioning, on the one-hand side, with the entrepreneur approach, and on the other side, by benefiting from our unique scale effect positioning of Volkswagen brand with around about 10 million cars a year. What's your leverage for these managers to actually make their targets? Is it a substantial amount of their pay according to the targets that you agreed with them, or do they not rather just get paid by the group results? Is it public naming and shaming within the organization and career trajectory, or what's really the penalty should they not make their targets or the incentive? Yeah to actually make it? Very, very important aspect. For me, it is very important to also adapt the management compensation on these targets. We will start next year to bring our management compensation more in the situation to be more accountable, to be more comparative to the competition. What we are doing is not only defining a strategic goal, we have intermediate milestones. Arno and me, we will watch the progress every quarter. When we have to speed up in one brand or in one organization, we will do so. e year, we will measure, very transparent, also in between the brands, and that's the advantage, having started the program at the same time in all brands. That's a kind of competitiveness in between the brands. Then the management compensation will be linked directly to the performance of all the brands. That's important. On the other side, I have already explained that I see this approach like in a sports team, that everybody is going to the gym right now, making themselves fitter, and as fitter as everyone, as fitter as a whole group. So you can understand the whole group as a sports team. Every sports team is working like a entrepreneur. That's a kind of changing the mindset in the brand and one very important part of the ten-point program. Looking forward to see you, Arno and Rolf, being jacked next year then from all going to the gym. Thank you, Oli. We do so. We do so. Tim, it was a really comprehensive answer already. Let me give you a short add-on on terms of financial steering. Yeah, you always refer to, like, we are a huge number of brands, and how do we steer it? Look, with our setup, which is unique in the industry, I think we made a major progress going forward. Look, we bundled the brands to Brand Group, to strong Brand Groups, and basically we are managing from a group perspective, a Brand Group Core, Progressive Sports, trucks business. In parallel, we have standalone platforms like software, a battery, and mobility platform run by our FinCO. This is a very lean and comprehensive way of steering this group and don't want to, like, comment on what Oliver already said. It's really a, it's really very clear and very efficient way of steering a company like us. We as a group basically interact with the brand groups, and they then organize themselves, Volkswagen, SEAT, Škoda, Volkswagen Commercial Services. We really took a major step forward, taking out complexity with this setup. Tim, being very concrete on the compensation issue. We have two parts of compensation. It's the short-term incentives, and that is focused on cash flow and profitability targets, and we are measuring it against brand and Brand Group performance, first part. Furthermore, we have ESG targets, and that is an important multiplier for our short-term incentives. On the other side, and that shows our focus on the capital market, our long-term incentives, and they're focusing on the shareholder value. This one is measured against the group performance, and that fits perfectly together, making everybody fitter and then supporting the overall group performance. That will be very accountable for everybody in between the short term and the long term. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tim. We are coming to the next question, which is from Horst, from Bank of America. Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking also my questions. The first question that I have, maybe some, maybe one for Arno. When I look at the underlying margin in Q2, 8.5%, that is below the one from Q1, 9.3%. I know there were some one-offs also related to Russia. Also in Q1, there were these employment bonus provisions. Therefore, I think there was a 0.5% sequential operating margin decline. Can you maybe explain what triggered this decline? Was it more on the cost side, or was it already on price and mix side? The other question that I have that relates again, China, also the link to Europe. What my take is now that basically the MEB platform is not strong enough for the Chinese market, and therefore you need a partner there. There's a saying that says, "If you make it in China on MEB, you make it elsewhere in the world." If the MEB is now too weak for China, should we be concerned about the MEB success also in Europe? In that context, when I look again at the CMD targets for Brand Group Core, it is basically the main division where you target operating margin increases, and this part of the group seems to get now the biggest problems, and that is on MEB. I know you have got a 2027 target, and in between, a lot can happen, but should that mean now that we should expect basically, some problems, let me put it that way, in 2024 and 2025, that we have got at first some deterioration in margin before we see some improvement? Thank you. Yeah. Horst, Arno here. Thank you. Now, if you look at basically do a kind of an EBIT bridge, of the first and the second quarter, it's really the topics you mentioned already. You saw it from our EBIT bridge for the first half. Price mix still strong with EUR 1 billion, mix even turned slightly positive, volume plus 4.1%. On the product cost, there were like some smaller one-offs, and we had the provision or the burden of EUR 400 million in Russia, and slightly higher increase in fixed costs. There was really no major changes on how we operate currently and also going forward for the full year. If you look at the full year, we expect these effects really to stay on. No major effects. Arno, should that mean then, because you gave some guidance on volumes, of course, for H2, that now the performance that we saw on Q2 is a performance that we can also see in H2? Yeah, yeah. In terms of profitability. I mean, we gave the performance guidance of 7.5%-8.5%, we said that we want to have that basically reach that for the reported and not for, like, the underlying. Mm-hmm. This is the one topic, we have to basically improve. Also, if you compare the performance, we expect a slightly positive for product cost for the full year, so there should be like a tailwind in the second half of the year. A fixed cost, basically, you could more work with the run rate, and volume price mix should stay the same. Perhaps again, because it's not 100% clear, the one is deliveries, the other one is sales revenue. We took down the delivery target, mainly because of the run rate in China. As you know, our China business is not in our operative business, but it's in our basically activity business. If you look at the sales revenue and the sales revenue trend, we are even above our guidance. Mm-hmm. That should give us really confidence to meet the second half of the year. That means, again, sorry, Arno, for being so persistent on that. That means that H2 margin could be even stronger than H1 on operating margin if the guidance is still on reported, right? Because in H1, you have been below the 7.5%-8.5% margin range. That means that H2 basically should be clearly up, right? Also, I mean, underlying maybe then unchanged, but reported up. Yeah, you'd have to, because we want to be really... Yeah ... meet the, I mean, from today's perspective, you know, if something major happens on the derivatives, on the exchange rate, that's basically kind of non-performance. Mm-hmm. From today's perspective of where we stand today, we give through a guidance of 7.5%-8.5% for the reported, not for the underlying. Mm-hmm. Okay. Which implies- Thank you. ... even a step up in performance, in reported in the second half of the year. Okay. Okay, Horst. Then let me come to your second question about BEV and especially on MEB. First of all, as we have announced today, is that we increased our BEVs 50% comparing to the previous year. That is positive. Could it be better? Yes, of course. As you know, when I started the Top Ten program, one of these 10 points and one of the important ones are the products. For me, it's about the right product strategy, it is about design, it is about quality, and it is about the right profit margin. It was one of the first activities we launched last year to enter in our product strategy and especially into our technology profiles. There is need for action in the MEB for clear. There are fields of improvement. Therefore, we defined a very clear program on short-term, mid-term, and long-term. Short-term, for example, we launched this year the ID.3 update, for example, to improving the interior perception and to repair some design issues. Mid- and long-term, we entered in a lot of designs of the whole Volkswagen Group and improving them with a clear brand and product identity. We launched last year a quality program for all brands. The approach is differently depending on the situation of all brand, but quality is one of the most important issues, being able to position our brand in our pricing level we are used to. Talking about the competitiveness in the Chinese market, we will bring to the Chinese market a MEB update. For example, you will see it next year, firstly in our new company, MEB company from Anhui region, where we bring a new Volkswagen product, and then bring further products on this MEB update in terms of technology. Linking this to our partnership with XPeng, for example, we can benefit also bringing components, technologies, software, and combining it, for example, with the MEB of the future. Giving you one example, we know in the worldwide benchmark that XPeng is leading in voice recognition, and that is an easy thing. to combine it with our platform and offering in the Chinese market, the best class voice recognition. That's only one example. That is our product strategy to improve our existing technology profiles in terms of range, charging times, infotainment offerings. For the future platforms, in terms of SSP or we did it already for the PPE, what we will bring with the first product next year. We have defined technology profiles, not focusing on the competition of today, focusing what we are expecting, where will be the competition in five years. That, from my point of view, is the right approach to bring the right technology profile for our future products. Just small follow-ups then. I mean, when we talk about, again, CMD and midterm target, especially for 2027, is it a smooth path to the 2027 target, or is it a path basically that could be first down and then up? Is it too early to make a statement on that? Arno here. It, of course, it's our ambition to have a smooth path. There's no plan that to fall down and then eventually rise in 27, 2027 again. We gave you a guidance on the sales revenue already, 5%-7% year-on-year. Of course, it's too early to give you an concrete outlook for 2024, from our perspective, the industry will grow. We expect a 4%-5% growth of the industry, specifically in U.S. and Europe, China, perhaps a little bit lower. 5%-7% sales increase year-on-year, what we communicated at the capital markets, they would basically mean we grow in line with industry. We have strong products, we have great brands. We work on the competitiveness on the MEB step by step. If there are no major incidents like COVID crisis or whatever, you should expect a smooth path from us. Okay, great. Thank you. The first proof point is the results of the first half of this year. Now, you know about all the cleanup we have done and all the challenging conditions we are moving. Delivering around about 9% of profit margin, for us, it was an important proof point to show that we are not only focusing on mid and long-term targets, but also on short-term targets. I would underline what Arno said. We want to have a continuously improvement, and then with bringing more and more of the future-focused products, we will strengthen our positioning. What is important as a message is, we have this robust situation of Volkswagen Group because of our product portfolio in between the four brand groups, Core, Progressive, sports and luxury, and trucks. That will bring us in a very leveraged situation, a robust situation, with very strong brands, and then supporting with the new products I explained before. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Horst. We are coming to the next question from Daniel Schwarz, from Stifel. Daniel. Yes, thank you for taking my question. The first would be on the audit that you announced for the Xinjiang plant. Have you nominated an auditor for this, did the audit start already? In your understanding, if the outcome is positive, would you expect MSCI to react right away and remove the ESG red flag? Second would be a follow-up on BEVs. You said order in bank remains solid, you saw an uptick in orders recently. In that context, why did you reduce the output in Emden? I think you also lowered leasing rates for the ID.4 a few weeks ago. Are you planning to go back to two shifts to potentially three shifts in the course of the year? Very quickly on the dividend payout ratio, with solid earnings but lower free cash flow in 2023, is it fair to assume that the dividend payout ratio will not increase for the time being, so 30% is rather the maximum, for now? Thank you. Okay, Daniel, thanks for your questions. Yeah, as we announced, we want to do the audit in China. We make good progress, and therefore, it's also important to have the political agreement. We are moving forward with our activities. What is very clear, we stay true to our values and want to show very transparent, how is the situation in Xinjiang. Our aim is very clearly to exit from the red flag from MSCI. That is our aim to play with full transparency and showing the world how we are working there. Talking about the situation of production planning in Germany and Europe, they're very clearly. That underlines our new approach, value over volume. Yeah, we will link our production planning very much on the demand in the market, which is strong, product by product. What we won't do is to build cars on stock and coming in the situation of a high incentive level. Therefore, we are deciding plant by plant to steer more market-driven than production-driven. Therefore, we are watching very deeply how the market will develop, and then we decide month by month how we will drive our production sites. I hand over to Arno, to your further question. I think the third question was on the, on the dividend side. We set our strategic target of at least 30% payout ratio, and that remains fully in place. In terms of cash flow, I said before, the situation is, yes, the cash flow, we can't be pleased with the cash flow in the first half and specifically in Q2. It's basically the reason for that is not that we have a weak gross cash flow. It's rather that cash is tied up in inventories. Of course, this cash flow will improve over time once inventory go down again. This gives us also, the financial situation, the financial power to stick to our at least 30% payout ratio. Thank you very much. Can I just ask for the first question? The audit, did it start already in China, or have you an audit up for this, or is it still to come? We haven't started yet. It's still to come. We are in the political agreement. We will announce soon what will be the next steps here. Thank you very much. Daniel, maybe one technical comment, because you asked if the red flag is immediately removed after a potential positive outcome of the audit. I mean, MSCI has its own methodology. They are reviewing their ratings frequently, but it is not guaranteed that according to their processes, it will be immediately removed. We are also in constant exchange with MSCI and will make sure that they are always aware of the latest development and will have the latest information in order to make an informed judgment. Totally clear. First, we have to do our homework, and then it's up to them, you know, how to do it, but the clear aim is to remove it. Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. We are moving on to Henning Cosman from Barclays. Henning. Yeah, thank you. Good morning. Thanks for confirming so explicitly that the guidance remains on reported EBIT. I think that's really positive. Perhaps gives me an opportunity. I know we've talked about it a bit, but to come back on the partnership approach in China, I'm still getting lots of questions here from investors who still seem to be a bit confused. In terms of what that means for the competitiveness and perhaps the risk of cannibalization with your own platforms, and I don't mean so much near-term tech fixes like voice control or things like that, but more when we talk about the platform itself with start of production in 2026, which coincides with the launch timing of SSP. Isn't that precisely the sort of proposition of VW to have a lot of scale on your own platforms, and how does that fit with the concept of this new partnership approach? I think there's still a bit of confusion. Perhaps we can try one more time to clarify that. Is it perhaps even something like an insurance policy for yourselves to put yourself on two pillars if unlike your hope and your expectation, CARIAD, for example, is not able to come up with a competitive software solution, for example, or otherwise in any of the other material parts of the VW own platform. Is that perhaps behind it? If we could try one more time to clarify for those of us who are still a bit confused. Thank you. Yeah, Henning, I'm very, Oliver speaking, is very thankful for your question. I think that that's important. We have a clear product portfolio strategy for all our brands in the regions and especially in China. What we want to do now with the XPeng partnership, is to tap into wide spots on our product portfolio. The Volkswagen product portfolio is in the lower A segment, and we have the main A segment and the lower B segment that will be provided by Volkswagen platforms, MEB+, and in the future, SSP. Then we are tapping in the higher B segment now with the XPeng approach with two products. First of all, only two products to get into, and that offers us the opportunity and opens us to use modules, components, software from this platform also for other approaches. We will pick the best technologies we have and combine it to our platforms. That's more or less the idea. Once again, set, everything we do comes from the customer perspective. The customer perspective in China is totally different from all the other regions of the world. They are very much more tech-focused. There are a lot of applications we offer there in the market are different to other regions of the world. Let us see this as an opportunity to widen our product portfolio. We still will have the big scale effects in between our platforms because the very high percentage of our cars will be on our own platforms. There we have the opportunity to use technologies with this entry of this partnership of XPeng. It's a support and improving our product offering coming from the customer perspective. That's helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Henning. We are moving on to Stephen Reitman from Société Générale. Yes, good morning. Thank you. I I have two questions. The first is, Oliver, I'd like your assessment really on how happy you are with the flow of information and the degree of understanding that goes between Wolfsburg and the regions, really. Obviously, you talk about, you know, Chinese customers have a different expectation of technology in their life. You know, clearly that wasn't well transmitted when the ID.3 was developed for global markets. Obviously, what is changing, and how are you getting people to sort of avoid the kind of mistakes that Volkswagen has made over many years? Whether it was misreading the U.S. market without SUVs or even as simple thing as putting in cup holders in the cars many years ago. My second question is really about the next building blocks, the group's success story. I think, one of the sort of like caveats about the day in Hockenheimring on 21st of June was the virtual equity stories, not so much was given about the individual brands. It was promised that more would come. You've now given us a timetable for this, although you're going to give us an update on the core brands in October, you know, the whole brand CMD is only gonna be in H2 2024. I know you've done a lot in, you know, bringing, moving things very, very fast, does this suggest that we're only gonna get a brand CMD for the progressive group later than that? I just wanted your thoughts about can we get this any quicker, really? I think that's what the market is really wanting to hear. Thank you. Yeah, Steven. Let me start with your first question. We have with some products a worldwide approach where we can benefit from our scale effects. More and more, what we see is the ecosystems worldwide are separating in between Eastern and Western world. We have to respect the offerings for our customers in the different regions. Making our products flexible is offering open source platforms, and then connecting them with the applications and fulfilling the expectations of the local customers. On the other side, beside of this worldwide products and adapting them to the regions, we have local approaches. We, for example, the products we will offer from our new NEV joint venture in the Anhui region are tailor-made for the Chinese market. That is one example. When we go from China to the US, there also we decided with our Scout approach how to tap into the biggest profit pool in the U.S. market, the upper rugged SUV market and the pickup market. We decided to bring the historical brand, Scout, into the market with a new technology approach, making this car electric, but combining the heritage with future technologies. There, what we have seen last week there is very promising. We are already preparing the plant in South Carolina. We make very positive progress in terms of design. We have decided a lot of technological decisions, these are two examples. The Anhui approach focused tailor-made for China, the approach of Scout in the U.S. The whole strategy is built by worldwide products, adapting them, on the other side having local approaches, combining this with partnerships in the Western and in the Eastern world, being able to fulfill the expectations of our customers. May I hand over to Arno or to Rolf for the further planning, what we will offer in terms of capital markets days? Rolf, perhaps you can. Yeah. Stephen, we made the poll at the CMD, and we showed the results in the slide deck, and you saw that the China strategy was clearly at first place. This is why we decided to make this the next CMD in April 2024. You are 100% right, yeah. The brands are also key to the story, and this is why we have also now said that we, in autumn, will have the performance program of the brand Volkswagen, which is a crucial part of Brand Group Core, and we'll follow up with Brand Group Core in H2. Audi, as you can see, from the results, Brand Group Progressive was ranked 5, so seen 6, so seen least important, actually, by the audience. This is why we are just following the will of our investors and analysts. This is explaining the ranking. The explanation to your question. Okay, I won't question the action. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Mike Tyndall from HSBC. Yeah, hi there, Mike Tyndall. Thanks for taking my question. It's a philosophical one. I guess what I'm trying to understand is, if I think about the largest EV maker in the world, they've got a very simple product plan. It's only a few products, whereas your strategy seems to involve nameplate proliferation. I'm just wondering, is that because you see the world differently, and you think you need to have more customization to win share? Because it feels like the penalty is that the capital invested just continues to go up. I'm just wondering if you can help me understand, where do we end up in the long run in terms of the nameplates? Is there a period where we do see some consolidation, or is multiple nameplates really the best way to win markets? Thanks. Yeah, Mike, may I come to your question, which is a very good one. First of all, we are a company to make a transformation, coming from a traditional ICE manufacturer, to a future BEV manufacturer. Because the different regions of the world are moving with a different speed through the transformation, we need a balanced mixed offering in between ICE, hybrids, and BEVs, with a clear focus for a strong ramp-up of fully electric cars in the future. On the other side, we have still great opportunities with our ICE offerings, to being able to finance this transformation. Now, I see this as a opportunity. When you look to the offering and number of cars, we have a different approach comparing with Tesla. We will have our scale effects by using platforms and offering these platforms to all our brands for their segments. Our customer structure is different than Tesla. We are offering very individualized cars which are linked to the brand identities and product identities of each brand, and that's a big strength of Volkswagen Group, having so many strong brands and such a big customer base. We have the approach to tailor-made our product for our customers while offering these individualization. That's honored by our customers. That is shown by the strong order intake we have already in this year. That's a strategy we will do in the future as well. We don't want to compare with others who offer only single models. We have a big variety of a product portfolio. Looking to the future, the number of cars will reduce, that is a clear message, because of reducing the offering of ICE models. That is the strategy driving the company through the transformation, which we will have at least for the next 10 years. Step by step, we are reducing the product, benefiting from the scale effects of platforms, but offering individual fantastic and exciting cars to our customers. Mike, let me add on what Oliver just said. He mentioned already that we will reduce the model efficiency. It will increase the model efficiency by reducing models, specifically on the ICE side. Since you started with saying a little bit philosophical, I would like to give also an add-on and a little bit philosophical. We touch now our strategy versus competitors in a market which is rather small in terms of PVs, but the market is increasing year-over-year. Let's assume 70 or 80 million cars. Eventually, we will have 20, 30, 50, and even more million electric cars on the total market. It might be also the case that our strategy will be even more powerful going forward when the whole electrical market is evolving. We are then there with great models, with great brands, and we are convinced that even in an electrical world, if more and more models are, more and more volume is there's a lot of room for differentiation. Yeah. Just one quick follow-up. Would it be fair to assume that individualization, if I can say that word, actually drives higher loyalty? I mean, if I get the car I want, am I more likely to come back? Yeah, I think people love brands, people love design, and people love individualization to express themselves, and that's what we are mentioning more and more in China. 20 years ago, we have had a very low level of individualization in China, and now there's a big demand. Therefore, we think that is especially our positioning. With individualization, you bring the product to a higher profit margin, independent of the segment, and you build a very loyal customer base. We have already millions of fans of our brands around the world, and we will widen up this also in the electric world. That's a strategy of Volkswagen Group. On the one hand side, scale effects, reducing, the model range a bit, but in between the models, having the opportunity of offering, individualization. Thanks. Thanks, Mike. We are coming to Justin from Federated Hermes. Justin, the floor is yours. Hi, thank you for taking my question. Very interesting listening to the various aspects of the business in terms of going forward. I'd be interested to understand a bit more about how you are mitigating the risks with the increase in the partnerships in China and the extension of the supply chain there, bearing in mind the issues around human rights that have been highlighted recently, particularly in China. Clearly, you're doing the audit in the Xinjiang plant, which we appreciate, and we're looking forward to the outcome there. I'd be interested to understand how you are managing and mitigating those risks with these partnerships and the extension of the supply chain that that brings. Thank you. Yeah, it's a very important issue. All partnerships we are closing have a very deep compliance part where we are tapping in all these standards and values. We are standing for. Our partners have to ensure these compliance issues and have to assure the values. We are driving our partnerships. That is on the top of everything we are doing, values, respecting human rights, but also all the environmental aspects play a big role for us. Therefore, we have built in all our brands now the ESG profile to improving there. The social aspects play a big role. Not only in our partnerships, in the whole value chain, where we work together. We are working with a clear framework of KPIs, of criteria, to work together. Thanks for your question, that is for us the most important thing before having a partnership. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Justin. The last question comes from Philippe, from Jefferies. Philippe, please. Thank you very much. I just had a question I'd love to have your comments on. When you and other carmakers talk about an order book of several months, I'd love to know really how that order book is, what it is made of, in terms of, you know, end customer, how much is fleets, company cars, how much is daily rentals, how much is dealers? What is the proportion of those orders that really have an end customer name attached to it, versus, for example, the rebuilding, what you think is an appropriate level of inventory, in Europe or in North America? Thank you. Yeah, Philippe, I probably can give you, like, the breakdown of that order book. Of course, a huge amount of that is like end customers, some of the private, some are fleet. If you talk about an order, it's either like directed to the. I'm talking about Europe, it's direct to the to an end customer or a fleet. And even if it were basically placed on a dealer, the dealer is rather sure that he can sell this car. It's really an individualized order book on individual cars. It's not just that we order cars in the factor. This is also why we say this order book is for Europe, because for obvious reasons, in China and U.S., it's different, where you have a build-to stock market, where we, yes, we build to stock, but in Europe, we have a build-to-order model, and we are quite sure that eventually, behind every order, there will be a customer. If I can go back to kind of an old issue of this model proliferation and, you know, building on to Mike's question earlier. Have you really tested in a way, what your market share would be, what your scale would be if you reduce 20%-25% number of nameplates? I know Tesla's approach is extreme, but I think like auto customers over the years have been kind of spoiled with never-ending choice, never-ending options, and it's nice to have the choice, but it gets counterproductive. Really, have you really done the work of stress testing, how much simpler your organization would be if you ran fewer models? I think the theme I'm getting from this one and a half hour conference call, et cetera, is. pausing is just too big and complex to succeed at this stage. I'm just wondering if you've thought about it seriously? Nope. I mean, I think what we don't want to, like, leave is with the impression that we don't work on complexity, both in terms of model complexity. We will significantly reduce number of models. We have a plan where we increase model efficiency, which is, like, basically the opposite of model complexity, significantly until 2030. The offer complexity of our BEVs is significantly lower than of our ICE cars. If you order ID.3, ID.4, I think you need five to six to seven clicks, and you're done, which is significantly more efficient than if you compare it with the ICE car. We argue for both directions. First and foremost, we reduce complexity, specifically in the ICE side. We reduce of models, we reduce offer complexity significantly on the BEV side. At the same time, what I just mentioned is there might be a case, and that case might be too early, when the BEV market is significantly higher than today, that our strengths of the width of some of the most fascinating brands in the breadth of, from a Škoda to a Volkswagen to an Audi to a Porsche, and also the models will be much more relevant than today when the electrical market is rather small. We argue for both. We accept and we realize that we have to, and we will reduce complexity both on the model and offer side, but at the same time, our time might come with an increasing overall BEV market. To going in one more detail, from the technical side, to understand a bit more how we are reducing costs with our approach with the SSP in the future, our only electric platform on different performance levels for sure. Using in this SSP approach, the same backbone of modules and components. That's first of all. When we come to the brands, we have approach what carryover effect we do have in between the different models. For example, using the same dashboard, using same consoles, using door panels and something like that. Therefore, we have a clear strategy. You need a lot of discipline of carryover effect. On the one hand side, as high as possible, on the other side, to differentiate the product. Yeah, that's the secret behind how to do it. Then, the offer, the offerings, Arno talked before, are a bit different in between the segments. As higher you are, as higher are the individualization in between the segments. So we are balancing quite well in between the expected profit margins, what we have to do. That's more or less to explain what is our technical approach to reduce our material costs. Justin, because it's of utmost important, I would like to add on another element, our production and industrialization strategy. Back then, every brand built its own car, but we moved basically to a strategy where we bundle the cars on the same platforms in the same factory. Let's take the ID.2. All ID.2 cars, based from CUPRA, from Volkswagen, from Škoda, will share the same platform, will share common parts, will be built all in Martorell. And the same is for other cars. It will be, from our perspective, a very good compromise between reducing complexity, building all cars on the same line, and some differentiation in front of the customer, which gives us a competitive edge. Thank you very much. Thank you, Philippe, and sorry for mixing up your name sometimes in between. We have come to the end of the Q&A session. Thanks for a very vivid and interesting Q&A session. We are now heading to a small break, and we'll start in five, seven minutes, actually, with the press Q&A. Thanks very much. Sorry, Philippe, I got it wrong. Okay. Thank you very much for your good questions. It was a good discussion. Yeah. Thanks also from my side. Great discussion. Good morning again. This is Sebastian. Welcome to our media Q&A. Oliver and Arno are sitting next to me, and we can right away start. If you want to ask a question, please press star one, and then you appear here in the list. The first one appears is from Hamburg, Christian Müßgens, FAZ. Christian, please. Yeah, good morning. I hope you can hear me. Hello? We can hear you. Perfect. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions. First is, could you give a little bit more insight on the BEV order situation in Europe? I mean, you have talked a lot about that the market is not moving as fast as you have expected it to move. What's your order intake, and what should it be like to utilize your capacities better? Maybe you can give some figures on that. The second question is connected to that. I mean, in Germany, government incentives to buy electric cars have been reduced, and given the reluctance of customers, maybe what are you asking for? Does Germany need a new program, a new incentive program? What do you expect the politics to do? Christian Müßgens, thanks for your questions. Oliver Blume is speaking. First of all, we still have a strong order bank of around 1,000 EVs. We have a good proof point in this year, being able to increase 50% of our BEV deliveries worldwide. In Europe, the situation is because some countries reduced or exit from their support for battery electric vehicles. On the other side, we have inflation effects and pricing effects because of higher material costs. In terms of Volkswagen Group, beside of the still strong order bank, we have seen during the last weeks a slightly positive development of our order bank. We have to watch, very, very deeply during the next weeks, how it will develop. At the end, everything depends of the right product offering we have in the market to drive further on our ramp up of PVs, not only in Europe, but also in China and in North America. In terms of support for the ramp-up curve of electromobility in Germany, there are three important factors. First of all, product. That's our responsibility, right pricing, right technology profile, attractive design. Then secondly, the charging infrastructure, and that's partly our responsibility as Volkswagen Group. We are planning to increase the charging points worldwide up to 2025 to 400, to 45,000 charging points. On the other side, we need support, from energy suppliers, for example, from the mineral industry, but also, from the Government, and the communities, to improve the charging, the local charging infrastructure, especially in the cities. Then, thirdly, to increase the source of renewable energies, and there, the German Government, has got a ambitious target, but it's important, to execute step by step and improving this. These three factors are important, and that would be the biggest support we can get. What I think, especially in Germany, for the commercial use, there would be helpful a support, especially for the electric vehicles. They are driving around a lot in cities and in towns. Yeah, that's about your question on incentives. We go from, Christian to Victoria. Reuters, Victoria Waldersee, please. Hi, thank you very much. I have two questions. One just relating to the news yesterday about the XPeng, Volkswagen partnership. Could you just clarify what platform the two new models that you're jointly developing will be on? Because the Chinese release from XPeng said they would be on the G9 platform, but that wasn't mentioned in the Volkswagen release. Just to clarify that. A second question, just a broader one. I wondered if you could speak in a bit more detail about the value of a volume strategy as you move into the battery electric space. I feel like we're seeing these two strategies emerge of gaining share by cutting prices or holding onto profit margins and financial robustness. You say you're more on the values over volume side, you are still targeting a EUR 25,000 and a EUR 20,000 vehicle. Evidently, you do still want to keep hold of that mass market. Could you just give us some specific examples of strategic decisions which prove the value over volume approach? That'd be really helpful. Thank you. Okay, Victoria, may I start with your first question on XPeng and the platform approach? First of all, I think before I explained also with the investors our idea behind to do this and the big opportunities we have with sharing modules, components, and we would use the G9 platform. All the technical details we will detail during the next weeks. Then deciding clearly using the best available technologies XPeng will offer and combining it with our platform approach. To say it again very clearly, that is only a part of our product strategy. We have for Volkswagen, four segments. It's the lower A segment, the main A segment, and the lower B segment. We are providing with our own technology, and for the upper B segment, we will go for the G9 platform from XPeng, and defining during the next weeks very clearly which part of modules or components we will use, and combining it with Volkswagen technology. What is very clear, when we are using these kinds of technology, at the end, it has to be and it will be 100% Volkswagen in terms of driving ability, in terms of design, and in terms of touch and feel of the cars. May I hand over to Arno for the value of our volume approach? Yeah, Victoria, on the value of our volume, I said in the capital markets day, we will focus really on the value and margin of our business. That means that we will display pricing discipline both on the ICE and on the BEV side. We rely on strong products. We have fascinating brands, and we have also the technology, which is getting better and better every day. We invest into technology in our platforms in Europe. In China, we mentioned already, we improved the platforms there with Horizon Robotics and driving assisting functions, in-car entertainment. We have all the ingredients from our perspective we need to explicit strong pricing going forward. On the other hand, there's also an additional flexibility we have. We are absolutely committed to ramp up our battery electric vehicles, we have also strong combustion engine cars, which have great margins and great cash flows. This gives us an additional flexibility on that topic. The next question goes to Patricia Nilsson from Financial Times. To all the others, press star one if you ask a question, because Patricia is the last one on my list. If you want to have the opportunity to ask a question, just press star one, and then you appear here on the list. With this, Patricia, please. Hi, thank you for taking my question. I want to start by asking, on deliveries, you've revised down your goal for deliveries. At the same time, you're saying supply chain issues are easing. Can you give a little bit more detail as to what's driven this? Then I have two more questions, and they're related to China, and one, some observers have made the comment that Volkswagen partnering with XPeng here is an admission that the company can't make it on its own in China. I would love to get your comments on that. Secondly, I'm wondering, how is it impacting your long-running relationships with SAIC and FAW to partner with one of their rivals at the moment? Thank you very much. Patricia, I will take the question on deliveries. Look, we had a slightly mixed picture on deliveries in the first half of the year. In average, they were like +13%, with a really strong growth in Europe, 25%, +25%. A strong growth in North America, +14%, and in China, slightly below previous year. Based on that run rate, I would say, we slightly changed our outlook. It used to be 9.5 million vehicles. Now, we moved it to the range of 9 million-9.5 million vehicles based on the run rate in China. What you have to take into account is that the cars that we sell in China, they, we account for them only at the proportionate result, basically on equity. They are not in our sales and not in our margins. This is the reason why our sales was up 18%, and our margin was very strong, our underlying margin was very strong, with 8.9%. Although we took slightly down the deliveries outlook in line with our value, our volume approach, we fully confirm our outlook for sales, and we fully confirm our margin target. Patricia, let me come to your China question. Listen, for us, it is very important to fulfill the expectation of the Chinese customers. Therefore, in our China strategy 2030, we agreed finally beside of the Shanghai Motor Show and was worked out in the months before, is to offer more solutions developed in China for China. We have our own product portfolio with MEB Plus, and in the future with SSP, for example. Then picking partner solutions to hit directly in the Chinese ecosystem and to fulfill the expectations. The cooperation with XPeng is to speed up in technology solutions and to widen our product portfolio and to tap into our white spots where we haven't got a product offering today. In terms of cooperation and future strategy with our long-term joint ventures, FAW and SAIC, we built also a clear strategy and agreed it with them during the last month. With FAW, for example, there we have the Audi approach with a new PPE factory, where we will bring starting next year, new Audi products on a high battery level. With SAIC, for example, we decided the Audi cooperation also with sharing modules and components. I think, for all of us, it's positive to get approaches from partners, technology from partners, to make our solutions better, and then having a better office for our customers. It is well thought and fitting well together in between partnerships like FAW and SAIC, and the new partnerships we are getting, and having a clear strategy behind, and everything thought from the customer perspective. Thank you. We have three more on the list, starting with Monica Raymunt from Bloomberg. Monica, the floor is yours. Thanks so much. I guess my first question centers on the recent trip that you and the board took to North America. I was wondering if you could provide some color on that trip, specifically on where the Scout brand is, and where specifically North America fits in the performance programs and in the savings efforts that are currently going on across the Volkswagen brands. Additionally, you mentioned that during this trip in North America, that some decisions were taken regarding technological advancements or technological decisions. I was wondering if you could also elaborate on that, please. Monica, may I start with the Scout approach. Maybe Arno can add a bit on our performance program in North America. First of all, we had a very good Scout presentation. For me personally, first time being in South Carolina, close to Columbia, being able to be on our construction site there, making very good progress. We are getting full support from the authorities there. We had the opportunity to talk with a governor of South Carolina. They are very proud to have Scout in South Carolina. We are getting a lot of applications of people who want to work with us. We think with the Scout approach for us, we are tapping in a wide spot for Volkswagen Group in the biggest profit pool. We do have in North America the rugged SUV segment, and the pickups are 30% of the market. Therefore, we see big opportunities. Using this historical heritage brand of Scout and bringing it to the future, while combining the heritage of Scout with modern technology. You will mention it when you will see the design approach, that there are still something in from the heritage Scout, but with a very modern interpretation. There we had a lot of, yeah, details to discuss in terms of which technology we want to use, what will be the construction of this car, what will be the offering we will bring to the market, what will be the positioning of this car in this pickup and rugged SUV segment. For me, it was very promising what the team around Scott Keogh presented there. We hired the designer, for example, for Scout, and he brought a lot of new ideas how to optimize our design approach. Yeah, I'm looking very much forward to ramping up this old new brand to the market and bringing us in a better positioning in North America. And maybe Arno can add something in terms of performance program. Yeah, Monica, we really agreed that we leave it to the brand Volkswagen to communicate their elements and, yeah, size of the performance program and the topics per region. But I would like to give a little bit flavor. I said before, it's like about a third is on the volumes, on the mix and volume side and on the price side, and two-third on the cost side, and that's, yeah, basically roughly true also for the U.S. We have a chance to really have even better mixes. Atlas Cross Sport are doing very well. On the cost side, it's the classical topics, fixed cost, productivity in the plants. There's an additional element that comes on top to the normal cost work. It's the synergies we can draw in the regions. We have not only been in U.S., we have also been in Mexico, and there to Canada is also part of the region. There's an additional element of that working closer together. We have sourcing departments in both countries. In working closer together in the regions, there is an additional element on that. Again, as I said, I really wanna leave it or we really wanna leave it to the brand to communicate their program in more detail. The next question goes to Dow Jones Newswires and Marcus Klausen. Marcus, please. Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. You've already addressed the issue of margin development in the analyst call. I have one further question regarding this, the trend in the second quarter. Are you considering additional measures to support the return beyond those currently already planned, and also in view of the price war, particularly in China? Second question belongs to the price development. We talked about the difficult situation in China. Can you comment on the price development in Europe? Thanks. Marcus, concerning the margin trend, what we communicate on the Capital Market Day already is that we have launched a performance program in all brands. Not only in brand Volkswagen, performance programs in all brands to make the group much more robust going forward. What we expected and what's now happening is that competition is intensifying in the third and fourth quarter. The whole industry is able to produce more cars, the availability of chips increases, and on the other hand, our customers are more cautious, and the result of that is a more intensified competition. What we agreed on in the group board and also in the brands, that we need and we will achieve first results of these improvement programs in the second half of 2023 already. There are no additional measures on top on the programs, but we will put a lot of focus in our group and in the brands to get the first results even this year, to make us more resilient, in an intensified competition. The last question for this call goes to Christian Müßgens. We started with you, and you got the last one. Please, go ahead. Yeah, thank you. I really feel honored to start and make the last question again. It's just a short follow-up. I mean, Arno Antlitz just stressed that it's important to stay flexible in the production of BEV and internal combustion engines. I mean, the actual problems with capacity utilization, maybe I'm wrong, but you can correct me, is affecting, in the first line, it's affecting plants that have already completely converted to electric cars, like Zwickau, for example, and on the way going there. Looking back, was it a mistake to try to transform complete factories as a whole to BEV? And are you maybe overthinking the strategy, staying more flexible in the future, and in the years to come? Yeah, with this, two factories and Zwickau and Emden, this was a starting point to bringing quickly volume to the market. What we are doing there right now is especially the value over volume approach, and that you will see in the future as well, very focused on the market demands and then steering our factories. For all the other factories, it will go step-by-step. Because we are going now through the transformation, like in Wolfsburg, but all the Eastern Europe factories or in Western Europe and in Spain, we have a plan for the next 10 years when we will get into with BEV models and up to with which schedule we will have the ICEs. That's important, as I mentioned in the investors call, to have this flexible mix during the transformation. Still offering ICEs, which brings us in the financial positioning, being able to finance the transformation to BEV, then offer hybrids and having a strong ramp-up for electric cars. This will go step-by-step and plant by plant. Mr. Müßgens, let me add a specificity to your question. In order to be competitive in the future, we are working really on the cost side and on efficiency side, also for our BEV cars. That wouldn't be possible if you have, like, a mixed line with combustion engine and BEVs. That would bring complexity, that would add inefficiencies. We are convinced that the way we are going forward, like having a 100% MEB platform, 100% electric platform with the MEB, having a 100% MEB factories, which are really then designed to the needs of an electrical platform, will give us also the cost base to be very competitive in the market. We go the extra mile, we go into overtime because Lutz Meschke sneaked in. We will give him the chance to ask a question from Capital. Lutz, Sorry for that, my question wasn't properly registered in the first place. It's very short, it's a very short one adding to the last statement. Since you're reducing in the moment the production lines in Zwickau and in Emden, and in the same time, you're planning to add MEB line in Wolfsburg, are you sticking to that plan, also to the time schedule? Does it still make sense, or can we or will we see maybe considerations to change that? Thank you. Yeah, we are right now in our so-called Werkbelegung, where we plan for the next years, which product we want to produce in which plant. What we have done in Emden, for example, is a temporary effect, and that shows very clearly, again, our focus value over volume, and what we don't do is to produce any more cars for stock. We will balance it quite well. What is the demand in the market while focusing on our profit margins, and that has nothing to do with the product strategy. This is clear. We stay to our product strategy in Zwickau and Emden, what we defined, while adding new battery platforms now to all the other factories. With this, I say thank you to Oliver and Arno, and also to all of you for asking questions. Always good to have you, and for those who have not enjoyed holidays yet, I hope they come soon. Schöne Ferien. Take care. See you soon. Bye-bye. Goodbye. Thanks for your question. Have a good vacation.