People often forget this today, but Volkswagen was among the earliest Western automakers to break into China. It launched a joint venture with the locals at SAIC in 1984, and that was the start of decades of sales and profits in what became the world’s biggest car market. For its trouble, Volkswagen is now in dire straits in China as much as any other foreign car company; sales are lagging hard as buyers turn more to local car brands with more advanced electric vehicle technology that are more attuned to their own tastes.

But VW literally cannot afford to sag in China. So now, it’s hitting back with three concepts that preview production cars meant to win back Chinese hearts and minds by being a lot like Chinese EVs—so much so that they’re made with extra help from VW’s old joint venture pals. 

Today, the German brand unveiled the Volkswagen ID. Aura, ID. Evo and ID. Era concepts, two SUVs and one sedan representing a new “in China, for China” strategy. They’re made by FAW-Volkswagen, Volkswagen Anhui and SAIC-Volkswagen, respectively. Equipped with advanced automated driving systems and built around “the needs of Chinese customers,” they represent the first of more than 20 “new energy vehicles” (how China defines plug-in hybrids and EVs) due out by the end of 2027.

With that plan, VW aims to achieve something it’s never been very good at in the face of Chinese competition: speed. Western and other Asian automakers are used to rolling out new internal combustion models around every five to 10 years, often with at least one minor update in between, but China’s brands leverage a deep bench of engineering talent and labor to get new models out much, much more quickly.

“We picked up ‘China speed’ with our new development center in Hefei,” said Thomas Ulbrich, CEO of the Volkswagen China Technology Center, in a statement. “Our goal is to develop our models within 34 months at most.”

Photo by: Volkswagen

Of the three, the ID. Era SUV is arguably the most interesting. It’s an extended-range electric vehicle, or EREV, meaning it’s built on an EV platform but has a gas engine simply to recharge the battery. The combination should give the production car around 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) of total range.

Photo by: Volkswagen

Next up is the ID. Evo, aimed at “young, lifestyle-conscious buyers who are keen to set themselves apart from the crowd,” VW said. It’s got an 800-volt electrical architecture, an upgrade over the 400-volt ID.4s and so on that we get in the U.S. and Europe, so it should handle faster charging speeds. It’s also the first all-electric model from a new Volkswagen sub-brand that is confusingly called the ID. Unyx. 

Photo by: Volkswagen

Finally, we have the ID. Aura concept, which looks Arteon-ish in a good way and in concept form boasts the shade of purple that Chinese buyers love. It’s the first car on VW’s new Compact Main Platform and should have “natural driving behavior” during automated assistance. It should also get an “AI-based humanoid assistant” and software modeled after a smartphone. 

In essence, VW is giving Chinese buyers what they really want: high electric range or EREV options, streamlined designs not unlike what they’d get from brands like Nio, and much more advanced software suites that are deeply integrated with other devices. (VW’s news didn’t mention its new for-China software partnership with Xpeng, so presumably, that’s a ways off from being in actual cars.)

Can VW win back its former fans? That’s a multi-billion-dollar question. VW’s sales were down a whopping 10% in China last year, so right now, it needs all the help it can get. And it seems like really delivering what Chinese buyers are after and not just leaning on its vast portfolio of global models is the new approach. 

We’ll check them out for ourselves tomorrow at the Shanghai Auto Show.

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