No foreign carmaker, however, is doing more to become Chinese than VW. It is planning to release 30 new mass-market EV models in the country over the next five years, with the first due in early 2026. They will come with advanced self-driving capabilities and sleek interiors sporting large display panels—features that Chinese buyers often prize above all else—and will be significantly cheaper to make than earlier models. VW is also considering selling the cars in Asian markets such as Thailand, which Chinese companies are currently bombarding with cheap EVs.
To do this, VW is overhauling how it operates. It has built an innovation centre in the city of Hefei that employs more than 3,000 engineers, most of whom are Chinese. The facility is fully owned by VW, rather than being jointly held with a state-owned Chinese partner (which its local carmaking factories are). Perhaps its biggest advantage is that it has the ability to make many decisions without approval from headquarters in Germany. That freedom has helped reduce the time it takes to develop a new EV by about 30%.
