The electrification strategy of the Volkswagen Group China is rapidly gaining pace in the world’s biggest market for e-mobility. The Group’s first factory specifically designed for the electric MEB platform is now commencing construction in Anting. The first model that will be produced in the factory of SAIC VOLKSWAGEN is a Volkswagen Brand SUV in 2020. Together with the FAW-Volkswagen factory in Foshan, which opened this summer, SAIC VOLKSWAGEN’s plant will begin to produce e-cars on the MEB platform directly after the first worldwide MEB-production starts in Zwickau, Germany.

“Through Volkswagen’s MEB platform, we will be able to easily produce state-of-the-art electric vehicles for our Chinese customers on a high scale. The Volkswagen Group, its brands and their Chinese joint venture partners focus consistently on sustainable mobility and push the transformation of the automotive industry in China and worldwide. In this way, we emphasize the importance of the Chinese market for the Volkswagen Group,” said Diess, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Group.

The new facility is scheduled to be put into production by 2020 with a planned annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles. It will produce various new pure electric vehicles of SAIC VOLKSWAGEN, including medium and large sized pure electric SUVs, as well as battery systems. The first vehicle being built is a MEB-SUV from the Volkswagen brand. The factory will be supporting the Volkswagen Group’s e-mobility strategy in China.

The vehicles being produced in Anting are based on the MEB, which is Volkswagen’s first pure electric automotive modular platform developed for mass production.

With the so called Roadmap E, the Volkswagen Group is driving forward its electric offensive. By 2025, 50 purely electric vehicles will be on the market worldwide, with one in four new vehicles to be powered by electricity only.