According to Bloomberg News, Volkswagen will follow the example of Tesla, BMW and other automakers in exporting electric vehicles from China to Europe, citing limited production capacity in its home market.
Volkswagen said on Friday that its Spanish brand Cupra will produce its first electric SUV, the Tavascan, at a joint venture plant in Anhui. This model is based on the same MEB platform as the ID.x family, and it will enter the European market in 2024. This is also the second model of Cupra based on the MEB platform.
“When drawing up the production plan, the Anhui plant was a plant with the right capacity and technology,” Volkswagen said in a statement, though it added that it currently had no plans to produce other export models in China.
Volkswagen is working on its five-year financial plan to decide which plants to build which new models by mid-century and how much to invest in those new plants/models.
It is worth mentioning that there are already several car companies selling Chinese-made models in Europe, such as Tesla Model 3 / Y, BMW iX3 and Renault’s Dacia Spring. PricewaterhouseCoopers recently forecast that automakers will import 800,000 vehicles into Europe from China.
