New Delhi: SAIC-Volkswagen is building a pure electric vehicle production plant in Shanghai that will roll out 300,000 EVs every year, a media report claims.
The Chinese-German joint venture company is investing an amount of $2.4 billion to set up the plant and it will roll out the first car in November this year. Also, commercial production will commence in 2020, as the media report claims.
SAIC-Volkswagen revealed its first New Energy Vehicle (NEV) Tiguan L plug-in hybrid in October 2018, which comes with a 50 km range in the pure electric mode. As the report claims, the EVs rolled out from the new plant will come with around 550 km range.
This new production plant is expected to increase the demand for automotive parts and metal feedstock including aluminium, magnesium and silicon. Also, demands for battery materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese will increase as well that would help the slumping economy.
Around 699,000 units of NEVs were sold in the Chinese market between January-July, 40.9 per cent up compared to the same period last year. Pure electric vehicles registered 551,000 units in the first seven months of 2019, up by 47.8 per cent compared to the same period last year.
The number of NEV sales is expected to increase further with the Chinese government aggressively promoting the e-mobility and offering subsidies for setting up vehicle charging stations.
Source: Argusmedia