Volkswagen Group has entered a new era of e-mobility in China with the first two China-specific models from the completely new, electric-only ID. family - FAW-Volkswagen's ID.4 Crozz 1 and SAIC Volkswagen's ID.4 X1 - built on the innovative MEB platform.
With market entry in early 2021, production of these two models has already started at MEB facilities in Foshan and Anting, which together have a combined total planned annual capacity of 600,000 units. This will enable the Group to increase the share of electric vehicles in its product portfolio to 35% by 2025.
The Anting MEB plant is Volkswagen Group's first greenfield MEB plant anywhere in the world, 100% dedicated to the manufacture of pure-electric vehicles. Through standardisation measures, the infrastructure investment at the new Anting plant was cut by 5% compared to previous car plants, despite significant higher costs for site-specific requirements.
The Foshan plant was revamped on the site of original production facilities as one of the most flexible plants in the global production network. It can produce both conventional internal combustion engine models based on the MQB platform and pure-electric models based on the MEB platform on the same production line.
A highly flexible set-up enables co-production of six to eight MEB products. With more than 1,200 robots in the welding workshop and an automation rate of nearly 100% in the paint shop, Foshan is one of the most productive plants in China.
