Volkswagen expects 4% growth in China this year
Volkswagen AG expects China's overall passenger-car deliveries to rise 4 percent this year, and the German automaker expects its China sales to increase at a similar pace.
Volkswagen Group China, which includes Audi, Skoda, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini and the VW brand, sold 4.18 million vehicles in China in 2017, up 5.1 percent from the previous year.
VW China chief Jochem Heizmann noted that VW gained market share in a relatively flat market. Last year, overall light-vehicle sales edged up 1.4 percent.
Volkswagen expects China's overall 2018 passenger-car market to grow at around the same pace as last year, which the German executive said was about 4 percent.
"Our intention is not to be behind that as VW Group China this year," Heizmann said at a media roundtable Tuesday in Beijing.
The new year will likely start slowly but pick up steam later, Heizmann said, adding that Volkswagen would reap the benefits of an SUV push.
China's vehicle market "is going strongly in the direction that half of the passenger car volume will be SUVs," Heizmann said. "Our SUV offensive will continue this year."
Aside from the traditional business, the automaker plans to add volume by selling more all-electric cars and plug-in hybrids.
China has set strict quotas for EVs and plug-in hybrids that take effect in 2019. It has an ambitious target of 2 million EV sales by 2020 and has signaled that it eventually will phase out the sale of internal combustion vehicles.
Heizmann reiterated that VW Group's immediate target was to sell 400,000 EVs by 2020, with a goal of boosting the volume to 1.5 million by 2025.
Over the next seven or eight years, "We are planning about 40 new locally produced" EVs, he said.
VW China chief Jochem Heizmann noted that VW gained market share in a relatively flat market. Last year, overall light-vehicle sales edged up 1.4 percent.
Volkswagen expects China's overall 2018 passenger-car market to grow at around the same pace as last year, which the German executive said was about 4 percent.
"Our intention is not to be behind that as VW Group China this year," Heizmann said at a media roundtable Tuesday in Beijing.
The new year will likely start slowly but pick up steam later, Heizmann said, adding that Volkswagen would reap the benefits of an SUV push.
China's vehicle market "is going strongly in the direction that half of the passenger car volume will be SUVs," Heizmann said. "Our SUV offensive will continue this year."
Aside from the traditional business, the automaker plans to add volume by selling more all-electric cars and plug-in hybrids.
China has set strict quotas for EVs and plug-in hybrids that take effect in 2019. It has an ambitious target of 2 million EV sales by 2020 and has signaled that it eventually will phase out the sale of internal combustion vehicles.
Heizmann reiterated that VW Group's immediate target was to sell 400,000 EVs by 2020, with a goal of boosting the volume to 1.5 million by 2025.
Over the next seven or eight years, "We are planning about 40 new locally produced" EVs, he said.
