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Following Audi's establishment of two joint ventures in China, China FAW Board, Audi Management Board and Volkswagen Group Supervisory Board held online signing ceremonies in Beijing and Changchun to officially announce that FAW Audi PPE New Energy Company has officially settled in Changchun.

Unlike Audi's two previous joint ventures in China, the new joint venture Audi and Volkswagen will own 60 per cent of the new PPE joint venture, while FAW will own 40 per cent, meaning the company will be dominated by Audi and Volkswagen.

It also enabled Audi to set up its first holding joint venture in China, becoming the third foreign-controlled luxury brand joint venture after BMW controlled brilliance BMW with a 75% stake and Volkswagen China held a 75% stake in Jianghuai Volkswagen. As the new joint venture company has been controlled by Germany, the later company may be named by "Audi FAW", "Audi (Changchun)" and so on.

In the vehicle joint venture project, Audi owns shares in two other joint ventures in China, namely FAW-Volkswagen Co., Ltd. And SAIC Volkswagen Automobile Co., Ltd. Among them, the German Audi Automobile Co., Ltd. holds 10% of the shares in FAW-Volkswagen and 1% in SAIC-Volkswagen, which is relatively small.

Since the first Audi 200 car was taken off the line in FAW-Volkswagen assembly workshop in 1996, Audi has cooperated with FAW for 24 years. But in January 2016, SAIC and Audi signed a cooperation agreement at Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg to set up SAIC Audi, a situation that sparked strong dissatisfaction among FAW Audi dealers at that time. In this regard, in January 2017, Audi and FAW Group formally signed the "FAW, Audi 10-year Business Plan" in Changchun. And in October last year, the two sides formally signed the "Audi FAW High-end New Energy vehicle Cooperation Project Memorandum of understanding", announcing the joint establishment of a new energy joint venture between the two sides.

The plan stipulates that it will continue to deepen cooperation in existing areas in the next decade, while carrying out extensive cooperation in new areas, including the continued expansion of traditional energy and new energy product lines, so as to cover the six most important market segments of luxury brands. New energy models and related service areas will become a new focus of cooperation in the future. Now the establishment of a new joint venture between the two sides is also a measure to deepen cooperation between the two sides.

It is understood that the new energy joint venture will produce pure electric vehicles based on the PPE platform (Premium Platform Electric) jointly developed by Audi and Porsche, which will be one of Audi's most important model platforms in the future. The first domestic model is scheduled to be put into production in 2024. And PPE platform products will be sold by FAW-Volkswagen wholly-owned subsidiary, FAW Audi sales Company.

In addition, the PPE platform will be mainly used for medium and large and full-size luxury electric vehicles, with adjustable body length and width, and can use different sizes of battery packs; the standard model motor is rear, and can be equipped with front axle motor to form full-time all-wheel drive, and adapt to air suspension, rear wheel steering and other functions.

According to the Audi electric vehicle project, Audi has joined hands with FAW to produce new energy vehicles including Audi e-tron domestic version, Audi Q2L e-tron and Audi A6L TFSI e. By 2021, Audi will work with China FAW to build localized models to 12 models. By 2024, Audi, together with FAW of China, will begin to produce the first electric model based on PPE platform. Audi plans to increase its share of electric models in China to about 1/3 of total sales by 2025.

In fact, the new joint venture is different from FAW Audi and SAIC Audi for a win-win result. While maintaining FAW's 60% stake in FAW-Volkswagen, Audi can also gain 60% control through the new joint venture to achieve common development.

Data show that Audi has so far delivered nearly 7 million cars in the Chinese market. In 2020, Audi sold a total of 726288 cars in China, setting a new high in the more than 30 years since Audi entered the Chinese market.

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