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VW China boss Brandstätter: A third cheaper
Photo: Johannes Neudecker / dpa
Volkswagen is going on the offensive in the important Chinese market with its own electric car platform and wants to catch up in the race against BYD and other competitors. The vehicles based on the new platform should come onto the market from 2026 and be in the price range of the equivalent of 18,000 to 22,000 euros, VW China boss Ralf Brandstätter said on Friday during a tour of the new electric car development center in Hefei.
VW wants to specifically respond to the wishes of Chinese customers with the cars, said Brandstätter. On the one hand, this refers to the topics of drive and battery. At the same time, new car customers in China are younger and tech-savvy and appreciate digital offerings in their vehicles. The platform is a further development of the Modular Electric Drive Toolkit (MEB) used so far.
China's car market is currently saying goodbye to combustion engines much faster than the markets in Europe and North America, especially in the volume segment. A large number of Chinese suppliers are pushing electric cars to market at low prices, putting the international competition in the shade.
At the end of last year, VW – after decades at the helm – had to cede market leadership to BYD. If you only look at the electric car market, the gap is huge: VW's bestseller ID.3 comes in at just 22nd place in the ranking of the best-selling electric cars in China – after massive price reductions that gave sales a boost from the summer quarter onwards in the first place.
New models are intended to remedy this: The Wolfsburg-based company has announced a total of ten new electric cars for China by 2026. The development center in Hefei, where about 2000 people are expected to work one day, is intended to help with this. The settlement eliminates the need for time-consuming coordination steps with developers in Germany, Brandstätter said. "We are increasing the efficiency of our development process, which allows us to reduce development time by 30 percent and at the same time ensure that we respond to the needs of our customers." VW is hoping for additional impetus from a cooperation with the Chinese manufacturer Xpeng, under which two electric models on a technical platform from Xpeng are to be launched on the market from 2026.
At the same time, the vehicles are to be produced more cheaply than previous models. "There is no argument for us why we cannot develop and manufacture vehicles in China on the same cost basis as our Chinese competitors in the medium term," VW CEO Oliver Blume told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. This includes, among other things, working primarily with Chinese suppliers. Ludger Lührmann, chief engineer at the development center in Hefei, said the company was able to reduce the cost of the display by more than a third, for example, by contracting a Chinese company rather than an international supplier to produce it.
The Chinese market is very price-sensitive, so VW has to adjust costs accordingly, Brandstätter said. If electric car sales increase, it is important to be profitable. "Accordingly, we are driving technology, speed and cost efficiency." The cars are to be produced together with VW partners SAIC and FAW.
mik/Reuters