Volkswagen Group aims to produce 11.6 million electric vehicles in China by 2028

Volkswagen Group’s upcoming massive electric offensive is going to mostly take place in China. The German automaker confirmed this week that more than half of the 22 million electric vehicles it plans to produce by 2028 will be produced in China.

Earlier this year, VW updated its electric vehicle objective as part of its new decarbonization plan and said that it now plans to produce 22 million electric vehicles within the next 10 years.

During a presentation at the Shanghai Auto Show this week, VW confirmed that more than half of those vehicles will come from China:

“Volkswagen Group aims to produce 11.6 million BEVs in China by 2028, more than half the group’s global objective of 22 million. Initiatives with all three Chinese vehicle production joint ventures – FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC VOLKSWAGEN and JAC Volkswagen – will enable this target to be reached.”

Dr. Stephan Wöllenstein, CEO of Volkswagen Group China, said that those companies would offer 14 electric vehicles in China by the end of the year:

“Volkswagen Group China is going full-scale electric in 2019. We will be offering 14 NEV models in China this year – providing customers with unprecedented choice. With the first two models based on the MEB platform launching next year and our investment in digitalization, we and our partners have laid the foundation to redefine what mobility means in China, and transform it.”

With two new factories going online next year, VW says that with their partners they are going to increase their EV production capacity by “an additional 600,000 pure electric vehicles a year in China.”

Electrek’s Take

China has won the electric revolution. I am putting Norway aside here since even though they lead in EV adoption, they are not much involved in the production of electric vehicles.

The big auto producers are the US, China, Germany, France, Japan, Korea, and a few others.

Now China is gathering the largest EV production capacity by a wide margin.

Volkswagen is arguably the legacy automaker most committed to electric vehicles and they have now confirmed that more than half of their production is going to come from China.

Interestingly, VW referred to the vehicles as ‘BEVs’, which means all-electric vehicles. Most automakers prefer talking about ‘electric vehicles’ or ‘new energy vehicles’ when it comes to their targets because it leaves them open to also produce hybrid or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

China also has many other foreign automakers investing in new EV production capacity in the country to be able to comply with its ZEV mandate on top of domestic automakers already having significant production capacity.

By the end of the year, they are even going to have Tesla’s Gigafactory 3. If they continue like that, they are going to own the electric future.