Going forward, VW plans to shift away from diesels and focus on battery models like this I.D. Crozz concept.
When Volkswagen AG says its future is electric, it apparently really means it. Chinese regulators approved a deal between the German automaker and Chinese automaker JAC to jointly build EVs in what likely will be the world’s biggest EV market.
The new venture has an approval to produce 100,000 electric vehicles annually, according to a report in Reuters. The deal is worth about $740 million, according to a VW stock filing.
Since VW’s diesel emissions cheating scandal, the automaker has paid out more than $30 billion in fines and fees globally and reset its entire product portfolio to focus on electric vehicles and away from diesel-powered engines.
The automaker plans to have 30 new electric vehicles ready for consumers by 2020.
(VW unveils I.D. Crozz battery-SUV at Shanghai Motor Show. Click Here to check it out.)
The automakers need to sort out more details before the deal is final, according to Volkswagen. The aggressive move on EVs in China shouldn’t be all that surprising. The automaker is the country’s second-largest foreign automaker and previously said it expects to sell more than 400,000 EVs annually by 2020 in China.
Of course, if you listen to VW executives, they’re pretty clear on what direction the company is heading.
“The future is electric,” declared Volkswagen Group CEO Matthias Mueller, during the annual meeting in Hanover, not far from the automaker’s headquarters in Wolfsburg. And VW, he added, “intend(s) to be the number one in e-mobility by 2025.
(Click Here to see more about the I.D. Crozz and VW’s electric plans for China.)
VW basically announced its intentions in China during the most recent Shanghai Motor Show when it unveiled the I.D. Crozz, a battery-electric SUV concept, and then proclaimed it would have its first EV in China later this year.
So far, VW isn’t saying which battery model will be launched in China this year. It is likely that it will go with an existing product, such as the e-Golf. But Diess is suggesting that the new I.D. Crozz is being viewed as more than just a concept, with the battery-SUV likely to reach showrooms no later than 2020.
How fast it actually makes it into production may depend on what Chinese regulators decide to do with their current battery-car regulations. The government has been under pressure to relax current rules that the industry feels are too aggressive.
(Volkswagen spending $300M to begin electrifying America. For the details, Click Here.)
“The rules look like they are being revised,” VW China CEO Jochem Heizmann said ahead of the opening of the Shanghai Motor Show. But automakers like Volkswagen say they may be forced to move quickly into the Chinese market with at least EVs if the revisions don’t come soon. Apparently that future is now.