Shanghai (ZXZC)- It is reported that JAC Volkswagen (JAC VW), the joint venture of Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Corp., Ltd. (JAC) and Volkswagen, will release 3 models of new energy vehicles (NEVs) to China’s market before March of 2018 and may sell them to overseas markets in future.

Reportedly, JAC has set its 2020 annual sales target of 1 million units and made planning to put autonomous vehicles to market for sale in 2019. Besides, JAC aims to sell 300,000 NEVs in 2020, accounting for 30% of overall annual sales, which is 10 times of its 2017 sales expectation. 

Meanwhile, JAC will collaborate with Baidu, the leading Chinese autonomous driving technology developer, to release L3 autonomous vehicles in 2019.

In fact, the program of jointly producing pure electric passenger vehicles by JAC and Volkswagen (VW) was approved by China’s authorities as early as May, 2017. According to planning, a new brand of NEV will be launched after the joint venture being established. The first product may be a model of SUV using the existing production platform of JAC. According to JAC’ insiders, the new model is being tested on road at present and will be official launched in 2018 if all of operations run well. 

Currently, Volkswagen has three joint ventures in China, FAW VW, SAIC VW and JAC VW. “Among our three joint ventures in China, JAC VW will be responsible for the production of pure electric passenger vehicles. In addition, VW and JAC's collaboration will enter a more comprehensive stage in future, including the R&D of some core components, such as battery module.” said Prof. Dr. Jochem Heizmann, president and CEO of VW China.