VW brand reveals electric car roadmap for China

The Volkswagen Group’s core brand VW has now revealed the details of its electric vehicle roadmap in China. To start with, VW wants to deliver 300,000 electrified models to Chinese customers as early as next year. By 2025, the figure is expected to rise to around one million.

VW announced the targets during a presentation of what the carmaker calls the New Brand Design in Guangzhou. To reach the 300,000 plug-in car target, VW is planning to launch ten electrified versions of existing models (PHEVs and EVs) in the local market until the end of 2020. Yet, they will soon be followed by MEB-based models. By 2023, VW expects its Modular Electric Drive System to have gained significant traction in China, thus helping the brand to increase the number of offered electric vehicles toward the one-million mark.

The first MEB model to arrive will be an SUV from the ID. Family, which is scheduled to go into production at the end of 2020. VW does not name it explicitly, but it is most likely referring to the ID.4, the SUV version of the ID.3. A preview came at this year’s IAA in the form of the ID.Next pre-production concept. The ID.Crozz concept as it was first called, used the 83 kWh battery version with 77 kWh net capacity borrowed from the ID.3. The rear motor with 150 kW also known from the ID.3 is supplemented in the SUV by a 75 kW drive on the front axle and thus turns the ID.4 into an AWD.

When it comes to the ID.4, the China strategy announced here appears to be similar to VW’s approach to the US market. As Thomas Ulbrich, Volkswagen’s E-Mobility Board Member confirmed when speaking to electrive, VW will convert half of the US plant in Chattanooga for MEB production, including the SUV.

Also in China, the ID.4 will be made at a new plant in Anting by SAIC Volkswagen. The next model on the roadmap will be the all-electric ID.3 hatchback. Dr Stephan Wöllenstein, Volkswagen Brand Board Member, and CEO of Volkswagen Group China said that both models “show that we are on the way to mobility with a neutral carbon balance with battery electric vehicles” on the Chinese market.

Nevertheless, the Volkswagen China offensive also includes internal combustion engines. Since the beginning of 2018, the Volkswagen brand has introduced a total of 14 such models. The latest addition is the compact SUV TACQUA by FAW Volkswagen and the large MPV Viloran from SAIC.

carscoops.com (ID.4), volkswagen-newsroom.com