As the battle rages for the future of the car industry, German automotive giants Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW have agreed on a common position on electric vehicles.
Battery-powered electric cars and hybrid vehicles will be the "order of the day," dpa learned on Wednesday from Volkswagen sources, while the recharging network for e-vehicles will be expanded.
However, dpa understands that the carmakers expect that water-powered fuel-cell cars will not be ready for the market in the next decade.
A spokesman for the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) told dpa that a "short, very constructive and good conversation" had taken place.
The heads of Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW, alongside VDA president Bernhard Mattes, spoke to one another, hoping to resolve disagreement, especially between BMW chief Harald Krueger and Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess.
Diess apparently solved the dispute with a strategic paper that is extremely controversial within the industry as well as politically. Critics complain that its proposals are weighted too heavily towards Volkswagen.
The paper says that previous plans for sales promotion and expansion of the e-car recharging network do not go far enough.
At the centre of the controversy is the question of whether all promotion - as Diess has in mind - should be concentrated exclusively on electric vehicles. BMW boss Krueger is utterly opposed to this course of action.
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