BERLIN, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The German Volkswagen Group China, Spanish SEAT and the Chinese auto manufacturer JAC, which together form the joint venture JAC Volkswagen, reached an agreement for SEAT's market entry in China on Monday.
Volkswagen AG CEO and chairman of the board of directors at SEAT, Herbert Diess, said: "With the market entry of SEAT, Volkswagen Group will be able to broaden the market development efforts into new customer bases."
Already, China is playing a central role in the global transformation of the German Volkswagen Group and its "decarbonization program", according to Volkswagen.
"Today, China is the benchmark country for electric vehicles. We aim to be a part of this ecosystem in order to exchange knowledge and make progress in achieving global mobility that is more sustainable," said Luca de Meo, CEO of SEAT.
Volkswagen has set out to expand the range of electrified vehicles this year and is expecting more than half of its 22 million electronic cars sold worldwide to be produced in China by 2028.
"In the world's largest market for electric mobility, the close cooperation between SEAT and JAC will allow us to create synergies, which will significantly increase our market coverage," Volkswagen CEO Diess added.
According to Volkswagen, the goal is to deliver around 1.5 million electrified vehicles, most of them pure e-cars, to customers by 2025.
"At the moment, especially plug-in hybrids are in demand but with time, more and more cars will be purely electric," a Volkswagen spokesperson told Xinhua on Monday.
In addition to a joint venture owned R&D center in the Anhui province's capital Hefei which is currently under construction and is expected to open in 2021, JAC and SEAT are also planning to develop their own platform for smaller electric cars.
In a smart city partnership with the city of Hefei, Volkswagen Group China, Mobility Asia and JAC are developing autonomous driving, including self-driving vehicles (robotaxis) and autonomous fleet management but also new ride railing services or car sharing.
"With this cooperation, we demonstrate that we are working hard to take a leading role in the field of smart mobility solutions in the Chinese market as well," said Stephan Woellenstein, CEO of Volkswagen Group China.
