Following the launch of the Q5 E-Tron in China last year with the help of SAIC, Audi is looking to expand its footprint in the People’s Republic by building a brand-new factory exclusively for EVs. In October 2020, the Four Rings inked a deal with the local FAW Group to form a joint venture and construct a factory dedicated to electric cars. The two parties have now received the stamp of approval from the Chinese authorities to get to work.
The new assembly facility will be located in Changchun and is expected to be operational by December 2024. Work on the factory in the provincial capital of Changchun city is scheduled to commence in April and will require an investment of approximately $3.3 billion at current exchange rates. Once it will be up and running, the plant is going to have an annual capacity of 150,000 vehicles.
Audi through the FAW-VW joint venture already makes and sells the Q2L E-Tron electric crossover in China where the plug-in hybrid A6L TFSIe is produced. Not only that, but the current E-Tron large electric SUV is built at an existing plant in Changchun, with three additional models to be built at the new factory. Automotive News reports one of them will be the E-Tron, presumably the facelifted version rumored to change its name to Q8 E-Tron.
The German luxury brand has already announced the new wave of EVs from China will include models based on the Premium Platform Electric, which is being developed together with Porsche. The Q6 E-Tron debuting later this year will be the first to get the PPE bones and will be shortly followed by the next-generation, electric-only Macan.
A production version of the A6 E-Tron concept from last year’s Auto Shanghai is expected to be one of the PPE-based EVs. These models will help Audi in its quest to boost electric car sales to a third of its total volume in China by the middle of the decade.
Source: Automotive News Europe
