Berlin, Dec 17 (IANS): German carmaker Audi has said it plans to invest around 18 billion euros ($20.4 billion) for electrification and hybridization during the next five years.

Audi increased total investments in research and development as well as in property to around 37 billion euros between 2022 and 2026, raising upfront expenditure in particular for future vehicle projects, according to a statement on Thursday.

"The current round of planning reflects our accelerated future trajectory," said Juergen Rittersberger, board member for finance and legal affairs at Audi. The focus is "quite clearly on consistently implementing the roadmap with a comprehensive product offensive of fully and partially electric models," Xinhua news agency reported.

Audi had previously planned total investments of 35 billion euros, and 15 billion euros for electrification, a company spokesperson told Xinhua on Thursday.

By 2025, Audi aims to offer more than 20 fully electric models. The future of the Audi brand would be fully electric from 2033 onwards, the German carmaker said.

Parent company Volkswagen Group announced last week to increase total investments to 159 billion euros over the next five years, 56 per cent of which would go to future topics such as electromobility and digitisation. (1 euro = $1.13)