Volkswagen AG plans to invest around $86 billion in the development of electric vehicles and other new technologies over the next five years, as the world’s largest auto maker races to overtake Tesla Inc. as the leading maker of electric cars. With the shift to electric cars, connected vehicles and an increasingly digital manufacturing process, the auto industry is amid its biggest transformation in a century. Volkswagen said Friday that it would allocate around half of a planned $177 billion in R&D and capital expenditure to accelerate development of technologies such as digital factories, automotive software and self-driving cars. The German company, which sold around 11 million vehicles in 2019, updates its five-year investment plans every November. This year’s revised plan underscores its efforts to build on its already vast investment in electric vehicles and digital technology. VW launched the ID.3 all-electric compact car this year, the first model […]