According to foreign media reports, Herbert diess, CEO of Volkswagen Group, admitted in an interview on Thursday that Tesla was setting a benchmark for electric vehicles. < / P > < p > < p > diess praised Elon Musk Tesla, and welcomed the possible competition between the two companies in the future. < / P > < p > earlier this month, musk delivered a speech to Volkswagen executives via video at the invitation of dais. Dais said: "I am very grateful for his presence and I think we had a good dialogue." < / P > < p > dais added: "We must admit that Tesla is setting a new benchmark for electric vehicles. Not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of productivity and speed. But I think competition is always good." < / P > < p > Volkswagen is pursuing its electrification strategy, and its group headquarters is located in Wolfsburg, Germany. Tesla is in GR ü nheide near Berlin "I am very grateful to him for coming to Germany. He will challenge us, but we will catch up as soon as possible," said dais < / P > < p > dais made his remarks after Volkswagen announced its third quarter results. In the quarter, Volkswagen's operating profit before deducting special items decreased by 12.1% to 2.8 billion euros (about US $3.25 billion). The German carmaker said it was due to "supply problems". The company said in a statement: "The global semiconductor bottleneck has a particularly significant impact on the operating performance of Volkswagen Group in the third quarter." < / P > < p > the semiconductor shortage is not unique to Volkswagen. On Thursday, the association of automobile manufacturers and traders (SMMT) said that UK automobile production fell 41.5% year-on-year in September. The agency said: "The shutdown caused by the continuous global semiconductor shortage and the loss of capacity caused by the closure of a large factory in the UK continue to hinder automobile production." Although the overall automobile production decreased, the production of batteries, plug-in hybrids and hybrid models increased to 32.3% of the total automobile production. < / P > < p > as early as July, Volkswagen Group said that it expected that half of its sales would be battery electric vehicles by 2030. By 2040, almost 100% of new vehicles in its main markets should be zero emission vehicles. < / P > < p > a few months ago , dais refuted the argument that Volkswagen might join hands with Tesla and said that the company was seeking to go its own way. He was asked whether to exclude the possibility of any future deal with Tesla, such as Volkswagen can produce cars for Tesla or the merger of Tesla and Volkswagen brands. < / P > < p > in this regard, dais said: "We haven't considered this possibility yet. We seek to go our own way. We want to get closer and surpass Tesla. I think we can do it. We need our own software stack and technology. Moreover, I think Tesla and musk are also thinking about their way forward. So there is no joint negotiation between musk and me." < / P > < p > Volkswagen is one of several major carmakers turning their attention to electric vehicles. In July this year, Daimler, another German auto company, said that its Mercedes Benz brand would "prepare to realize the electrification of all models around 2030 when market conditions permit". (small) < / P > < p >