Volkswagen Confirms New Entry-Level, China-Specific EV Platform

Volkswagen has outlined a plan to strengthen its place in China with an all-new platform for reasonably priced electrical automobiles. The platform shall be primarily based on native parts.

The information was shared on Friday by China chief Ralf Brandstaetter in the course of the opening a brand new EV improvement and procurement middle—Volkswagen Group China Expertise Firm (VCTC) in Hefei. An funding of round $1.1 billion within the VCTC is predicted to create over 2,000 jobs.

Based on Reuters, Volkswagen will develop a brand new entry-level, China-specific platform, presently often called the “A Major Platform.” The main target is on decreasing prices, partially by means of utilizing an excellent increased ratio of native parts than within the case of the present manufacturing of the MEB-based fashions in China (ID.3, ID.4, ID.6, and ID.7).

The brand new platform shall be derived from the Modular Electrical Drive Toolkit (MEB) and is predicted to be prepared in 2026—a couple of third sooner than initially anticipated—because of the VCTC.

Ralf Brandstaetter defined that the Chinese language electrical car market was very “price-sensitive”, which requires optimizing prices. Let’s recall that the Volkswagen model is not the best-selling model in China (BYD surpassed VW in late 2022), principally due to lowering gasoline automobile gross sales (EVs are a small a part of the model’s quantity and grew slower than anticipated).

Worth cuts of the Volkswagen ID.3 mannequin in China already allowed VW to extend the gross sales quantity from a median of two,200 models per thirty days to round 10,000 per thirty days (in July-October).

The brand new platform targets the entry-level phase with a value vary of $19,570 (140,000 CNY) and 170,000 CNY ($23,760). This might be fairly fascinating.

Based on the report, the plan is to introduce 4 fashions primarily based on the brand new platform and produce them by means of the present joint ventures with SAIC and FAW, that are additionally producing the MEB-based fashions.

On prime of that, beginning in 2026, Volkswagen hopes to launch two additional all-electric models, developed in partnership with XPeng. In whole, there can be six new fashions.

Earlier than that, by 2026, Volkswagen is predicted to launch 10 new all-electric automobiles globally, in addition to improve the velocity of launching new autos.