INGOLSTADT, Germany - Germany's Audi has abandoned plans to sell its & Italian motorcycle brand Ducati, its chief executive Rupert Stadler & said, in a sign of confidence that the carmaker expects to be able to & carry the costs of its transformation.

Steps to reduce costs by 10 billion euros ($11.8 billion), cut red tape & and deepen ties with fellow Volkswagen-owned brand Porsche are & "gradually increasing our financial and organizational leeway for the & strategic realignment," chief executive Rupert Stadler told reporters.

There is therefore no economic need to sell Ducati, Stadler said. & Volkswagen asked banks to evaluate options for Ducati and transmissions & maker Renk earlier this year as seeks to become more nimble in its shift & towards electric and self-driving cars following its diesel emissions & cheating scandal.

"I can assure you that Ducati belongs to the Audi family," said Stadler. & "Ducati is the perfect implementation of our premium philosophy in the & world of motorbikes."

The plans had already stalled in the summer when VW's powerful labor & unions, backed by the controlling Porsche-Piech families, opposed the & logic and need for asset sales given the group's financial resilience. & Investors and potential Ducati buyers, however, expect that VW could & change its mind again and eventually opt to sell the asset which they & say has least strategic importance to VW.

"For Volkswagen's powerful works council it could be an easy bargaining & chip they could offer to push through something completely different," a & person close to the matter said.

Investors have long favored divestments to simplify VW's group structure & and to strengthen its management's ability to push through structural & changes against the unions' wishes. Audi, which owns Ducati and Italian & supercar maker Lamborghini, last month reported higher operating profit & and revenue for the first nine months, helped by growing auto demand in & the higher-margin western European and U.S. markets.

While pushing the costly shift to zero-emissions and autonomous & technologies, holding on to the profitable Ducati division and the & lucrative Lamborghini brand has become more important, Stadler said.

"Looking after a premium bouquet is as difficult as the work of a & gardener," Stadler said. "Therefore I am pleased with every new flower, & with every promising new branch," he added, predicting Lamborghini's & sales would double on the back of its new sport-utility vehicle.

Separately, Stadler said Audi will spend nearly half a billion euros & over the next eight years on training staff for the digital age, with & steps to develop as well as hire experts such as automotive & app-designers and car robotics specialists.

To rein in costs, Audi wants to keep headcount stable, at least over the & next 2-3 years, even as it plans to have more than 20 electrified & vehicles on the market by 2025 and pushes into digitised mobility & services, the CEO said.

With two-thirds of Audi's 60 or so models by 2025 still slated to be & combustion-engine cars, tightening carbon dioxide (CO2) rules will pose & the "biggest risk" in coming years, he said, adding that Audi would face & 1 billion euros of fines if its average fleet CO2 emissions exceeds EU & limits by no more than eleven grammes per kilometers.

Audi has overhauled its whistleblower system to allow domestic and & international staff to flag illegal conduct more easily and it has set & up a permanent investigation office.

Audi plans early next year to dissolve a task force set up to monitor & fixes for 850,000 diesel-fuelled cars that the automaker said in July & needed updates with emissions-control software to help avoid potential & driving bans.

"It's a sign that we can slowly shift from crisis mode back into & standard operation," Stadler said, predicting the check-ups to be & completed by the end of the first quarter.

Via: autoblog&