The Volkswagen concern, which is slowly slipping into a management crisis, is trying to improve matters with the help of more efficient and successful Chinese partners. This week, Volkswagen, through its financial subsidiaries, acquired a 4.99% stake in Chinese electric vehicle startup Xpeng, whose platform will form the basis of two new Volkswagen models due to enter the Chinese market in 2026.
The deal between Volkswagen and Xpeng was announced at the end of July, and yesterday the press service of the Chinese company reported that the deal was successfully closed, costing the Volkswagen concern $705.6 million. Volkswagen will appoint an observer to the Xpeng board of directors, but will not have voting rights.
The electric vehicle company Xpeng was founded in 2014 by a group of Chinese businessmen with experience in the automotive industry and the IT sector, the first model entered the market in 2018, now the Xpeng product line includes six models, the latest of which is the X9 minivan (in the title photo), debuted last month at the Guangzhou Auto Show.
Xpeng is one of the ten most promising and dynamically developing young Chinese automobile companies, so it is not surprising that Volkswagen, whose own electric models are selling frankly poorly in the Chinese market, decided, before it is too late, to rely on the technological power of Xpeng to create models in the best possible way. meeting the needs of the Chinese consumer. So far, Volkswagen is preparing only two models on the Xpeng platform, they should go on sale in 2026; in the future, the partnership between Volkswagen and Xpeng could be expanded and even go beyond China.
Xpeng reports that progress on the first two Volkswagen models on its platform has already been great, a feasibility study of the project has been completed, and a hot development phase lies ahead. It is curious that Volkswagen will not have access to the latest Xpeng SEPA 2.0 platform, on which the latest models are built — the Xpeng G6 crossover and the Xpeng X9 minivan, but to an older platform that underlies the flagship Xpeng G9 crossover.
< img src="/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/6fd101611c07e367647ccf4380361d78.jpg" />Xpeng G9
Volkswagen models on the Xpeng G9 platform are announced in the B-class, but, as we managed to understand, in the application to the Chinese market The B-class is not a subcompact model, as in Europe, but, let’s say, the second highest price echelon. That is, the new Volkswagen products on the Xpeng platform will be quite large, well-equipped and not cheap.
We would like to add that last fall the Stellantis Corporation and the Chinese startup Leapmotor announced a long-term cooperation: it is much larger-scale and promising, than the deal between Volkswagen and Xpeng, but the German concern is trying to diversify risks and, in addition to new products on the Xpeng platform, is preparing budget models for China on its own new platform.