As the German carmaker Volkswagen pushes for a strategic shift in the wake of its emissions scandal, one of its top executive said that the scandal hit company is looking at on-demand mobility services such as smartphone ride hailing to earn a “notable share” of future revenues.

A deal of cooperation was signed on Wednesday by Volkswagen and ride-hailing company Gett after announcing a $300 million investment in the firm last week. The German automaker had posted 213 billion euros ($237.90 billion) of revenue last year.

The ride-hailing market is growing very fast and in Europe alone the sector may yield 10 billion euros of sales by 2025 and could grow more than 30 percent annually. Business models such as car sharing, limousine rides and taxi services could be the result from the cooperation with Gett, said VW Chief Executive Matthias Mueller.

“In future, our core product will not be just the car,” Mueller said. “Our core product, our promise to customers, is mobility,” Mueller said.

While enhancing its investments in electric cars, new technologies and mobility services which are at the center of a new strategy, Europe’s largest automaker will, this month, unveil a new business strategy aimed at improving accountability and speeding up model development, company sources have said.

However almost all the rivals of Volkswagen are also surign ahead with their own plans in this segment. While General Motors invested $500 million in Lyft, Toyota Motor Corp last week said it would invest in mobility company Uber Technologies Inc, Lyft’s main U.S. rival.

In a situation where a significant number of consumers around the world choose to forego vehicle ownership and buy transportation by the mile or the minute, the automakers do not want to be left wanting and view the development as bystanders  and the growing number of deals reflects the desire by automakers to become part of this new developing segment.

“Through this partnership, we’re getting access to 100 million VW customers,” Gett founder and chief executive Shahar Weiser said.

Volkswagen and Gett declined to disclose the financial terms of their agreement.

Unlike its German rivals Daimler and BMW who have for years been running their own car-sharing operationsm, the Wolfsburg-based VW has long ignored alternative mobility concepts.

With travelers seeking to connect to different modes of transportation through apps, the advent of smartphones has fundamentally changed customer expectations.

Post-dieselgate Volkswagen will open up to new investments and partnerships such as with Gett, pledged CEO Mueller.

“Volkswagen now is not the same as Volkswagen before I became CEO” in September 2015, Mueller said, indicating the group is willing to expand beyond manufacturing and selling cars as a means to broaden its appeal with customers. The times when we thought that the world revolves around Wolfsburg are history,” he said.

(Adapted from Reuters)