Audi and SAIC, China's biggest automaker, on Monday provided the first details on a partnership announced in July aimed at accelerating the development of electric vehicles for the Chinese market.
The two automakers said they plan to jointly develop an EV platform to be called the Advanced Digitized Platform. It will be designed for subcompact and compact cars.
Audi has appointed Fermín Soneira Santos to oversee the partnership. The Audi veteran was previously responsible for the automaker's compact EV range.
Audi will launch at least three vehicles on the platform, the first of which is due in 2025. The automaker said the partnership will help shorten the development time of the vehicles by more than 30%. The accelerated development is one of the main reasons Audi turned to SAIC for help in developing the platform.
“We have a clear and common goal: to combine the best of our two companies to the full advantage of our Chinese customers with Audi’s premium experience and SAIC’s innovation speed in China,” Gernot Döllner, Audi's CEO, said in a statement.
Volkswagen has a similar deal with Chinese EV startup Xpeng. The two plan to jointly develop VW EVs for sale in China, based on Xpeng platforms. Two models in the midsize segment are planned for launch in early 2026.
Both Audi and VW have dominated the Chinese market for sales of gas cars but have struggled in the new electric era. Audi offers just two EVs in China, the Q4 E-Tron and Q5 E-Tron, both based on parent Volkswagen Group's MEB platform. Sales of those models only totaled 6,420 units in the first four months of 2024, or less than half a percent of China's EV market, according to Reuters. The top EV company in China, BYD, sold almost 100,000 EVs in the country over the same period.
