To be in business with electric cars in China not being further left behind catches up Volkswagen Help. The VW brand will expand its specially developed electric portfolio in 2026 by two models that are being developed together with the Chinese manufacturer Xpeng, Volkswagen China Board Member Ralf Brandstätter (54) announced on Wednesday. Both cars are to compete in the middle class, in which VW is represented in the combustion engine business in China with the Passat and Teramont models. The collaboration will not be purely on the electromobility limit, even with software and autonomous driving VW wants to cooperate with Xpeng.
premium daughter Audi in turn, the partnership with SAIC will be expanded. Together, the duo want to “start with electric models in a segment in which Audi is not yet represented in China,” it said. Both the additional VW and Audi models are initially intended purely for the Chinese market.
The deal with Xpeng goes beyond a pure technology partnership. As part of a capital increase, Volkswagen is buying 4.99 percent of the shares in the Chinese manufacturer for USD 700 million. That’s what the supervisory board decided on Wednesday. in one Linkedin post
Brandstätter showed up with Xpeng’s Chairman He Xiaopeng (45). He had “exchanged very trustingly” with him and the entire team in recent months. Above all, Xpeng’s boss wants to work with Volkswagen because no other international carmaker understands Chinese culture better.
Brandstätter emphasized that the “development responsibility” for the new projects will be assumed by the recently founded Volkswagen Group China Technology Company in Hefei in the province of Anhui. In the future, more than 2,000 people will work there in development and procurement, making the location the carmaker’s largest development center outside of Wolfsburg.
Specially developed e-cars are not well received
So far, Volkswagen has been offering electric cars in China, all of which are based on its own MEB platform. But neither the ID vehicles nor the Audis Q4 and Q5 e-tron arrive at the customer’s site. Market leader for many years, Volkswagen last held the top spot BYD have to resign. In the second quarter, BYD put 595,300 new cars on the road in China, Volkswagen 544,000. The electric cars from VW and Audi in particular have not yet arrived in China. Between April and June, the group sold 23,433 electric cars, a meager 4 percent of total sales.
New partner Xpeng is more successful with its Stromers:
The path that has now been taken means a paradigm shift in the Group’s China strategy. While Volkswagen’s joint venture partners such as SAIC and FAW had benefited from the know-how of the German car manufacturer in the past, the tide is now turning. “In a highly competitive and dynamic market environment, we build on the respective core competencies of the partners. In this way, we create synergies in order to bring additional products to the market more quickly.” Local partnerships are “an essential building block” of the group’s “in China for China strategy”. Means: Brandstätter is increasingly decoupling the China business from the headquarters in Wolfsburg.