Volkswagen AG is to invest more than 10 billion euros (US$12 billion) with its partners to make a range of new-energy vehicles in China, as carmakers step up investments in low-emission models in the world’s biggest auto market.
Volkswagen is to make the investments by 2025 and introduce 40 locally produced vehicles, its China head Jochem Heizmann told reporters in Guangzhou yesterday.
The European automaker’s venture with Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group (安徽江淮汽車) is to start production of electric vehicles(EVs) in the first half of next year, while sales are to start in the second half.
Volkswagen in September announced sweeping plans to build electric versions of all 300 models in the 12-brand group’s lineup, vowing to spend 20 billion euros by 2030 to roll out the cars, and earmarked another 50 billion euros to buy the batteries needed to power the vehicles.
In May, Volkswagen received a green light from the Chinese government to set up a joint venture with the state-owned Chinese automaker to make electric cars.
The Wolfsburg, Germany-based company sold 2.5 million vehicles in China in the first 10 months of the year.
Volkswagen has previously said it plans to sell 400,000 units of new-EVs a year by 2020 and to increase that number to 1.5 million by 2025.
Volkswagen is to introduce 15 models based on its MQB platform, which converts internal combustion engine cars into plug-in hybrid or pure electric versions, Heizmann said, adding that the rest of the models are to be developed on new platforms.
In September, China unveiled a comprehensive set of emission rules and delayed a credit-score program tied to the production of electric cars, giving manufacturers more time to prepare for the phasing out of fossil-fuel powered vehicles.
Under the so-called cap-and-trade policy, automakers must obtain a new-EV score — which is linked to the production of various types of zero and low-emission vehicles — of at least 10 percent starting in 2019, rising to 12 percent in 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on its Web site.
By delaying the implementation year to 2019 and allowing automakers to combine credits in 2019 and 2020, it is no longer a major challenge for Volkswagen to fulfill the demand, Heizmann said.
However, it is a tough target for Volkswagen to achieve an average fuel consumption level for the fleet of 5 liters per 100km by 2020, Heizmann said.
The automaker is looking at all technologies to improve fuel consumption efficiency of internal combustion engine vehicles.
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