Ralf Brandstaetter, Volkswagen Board Member responsible for China, speaks at a presentation ahead of the motor show in Shanghai. Johannes Neudecker\/dpa <\/p>\n
German carmaker Volkswagen expects competition to intensify with the increasing presence of large tech companies in the Chinese car market.<\/p>\n
“That doesn’t make life any easier for us,” Volkswagen board member for China Ralf Brandst\u00e4tter said in Shanghai on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
However, VW believes that its state-of-the-art technology puts it in a good position to compete and capture its share of the market.<\/p>\n
“In my view, the playoff season is now beginning,” said Brandst\u00e4tter, referring to the knockout stages common in sport. Some market players could catch up, but not all would survive, he added.<\/p>\n
The Volkswagen Group, which also includes the Audi and Porsche brands, has announced a major product offensive for the Auto Shanghai motor show starting on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
On the eve of the exhibition, the group unveiled five new cars. VW is presenting three vehicles in Shanghai as “show cars,” that is vehicles close to series production.<\/p>\n
These include an SUV with a range extender, meaning an electric car with a combustion engine that charges the battery, thus guaranteeing a longer range.<\/p>\n
VW also presented a fully electric car and a car in the highly competitive compact class, which is also intended to compete with Chinese rivals on price.<\/p>\n
According to Brandst\u00e4tter, the vehicle would cost the equivalent of around \u20ac17,000 (about $19,600) in China.<\/p>\n
Prices in China are a problem, VW brand boss Stefan Mecha said.<\/p>\n
The competition’s vehicles have all the technology, but not at a realistic price, he said. To give a realistic picture, the cars would actually have to cost twice as much, according to Mecha.<\/p>\n
Ralf Brandstaetter, Volkswagen Board Member responsible for China, speaks at a presentation ahead of the motor show in Shanghai. Johannes Neudecker\/dpa
A Volkswagen ID.Aura, a near-production show car stands on a stage at a presentation ahead of the motor show in Shanghai. Johannes Neudecker\/dpa <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ralf Brandstaetter, Volkswagen Board Member responsible for China, speaks at a presentation ahead of the motor show in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[23578,2000,299,1824,23579,23580,23577,10741,2188,23576],"class_list":{"0":"post-41847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-brandstatter","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-market-players","13":"tag-presentation","14":"tag-ralf-brandstaetter","15":"tag-shanghai","16":"tag-volkswagen","17":"tag-volkswagen-group"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114383211968813558","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}