Audi to focus on ‘electrification and digitalisation’ as it eyes young Chinese buyers

German luxury car brand Audi is focusing on “electrification and digitalisation” to attract the new generation of buyers in China, the world’s largest electric vehicle market.

The right partnerships, accurate consumer insights, and use of cutting-edge technologies are the key elements characterising Audi’s push in China, said Giorgio Delucchi, head of sales for mainland China and Hong Kong.

“We want to ensure that Audi is at the forefront of the technical development with the [Chinese] partnerships,” Delucchi said in an exclusive interview with the Post. “In China, we aim to maintain our sales quality and we are consequently driving the transformation in our company towards customer centricity, electrification and digitalisation.”

Delucchi said Audi has been following the industry’s developments closely. It plans to deliver customers new luxury models that can define the future of mobility – a vehicle whose interior turns into a new living environment.

“In general, connected electric vehicles [with internet of things technology] is the future,” he said, adding that Volkswagen’s automotive software unit CARIAD is playing an important role in creating an ecosystem for the entire VW group, paving the way for autonomous driving.

For Audi, a leader in China’s luxury vehicle segment for the past three decades, its EV offensive in the world’s largest car market has just started amid the accelerated pace of electrification on the roads.

Tesla and China’s home-grown EV start-ups such as Xpeng, NIO and Li Auto are emerging as game-changers in the market, where young drivers have a penchant for intelligent features like driver assistant systems, voice recognition technology and huge screens.

Audi, the luxury car unit of Volkswagen, does not report monthly EV deliveries in China, but it lags far behind Tesla and the domestic start-ups.

Audi is transforming itself into a provider of sustainable mobility, and has set a target of delivering 3 million cars a year around the globe from 2030.

In 2025, Audi plans to assemble five battery-powered EV models at its mainland-based plants, Delucchi said. From 2026 onwards it will only launch electric-powered cars.

At present, Audi and its Chinese partner FAW Group make the electric Q2L e-tron and the plug-in hybrid A6L TFSle models.

In October 2020, Audi signed a pact with state-owned FAW based in Changchun, in northeast China’s Jilin province, to set up a new venture for EV production. The new plant is set to start operation from 2024.

It also started producing the A7L at the Shanghai Volkswagen plant in September, after forming a new partnership with SAIC Motor.

“We are confident that we will blaze a trail in the EV market [in China],” said Delucchi. “We have very strong partners and can make sure that our development process is relevant to China and Hong Kong.”

The company has also formed tie-ups with a raft of China’s leading technology behemoths such as Alibaba Group Holding, Baidu and Tencent Holdings to collaborate in the fields of big data, IoT and urban mobility.

Delucchi added that the Audi Innovation Circle established in July 2019, a system for collecting well-founded customer opinions, is helping the luxury brand to better understand the needs of Chinese drivers.

Audi has 570 dealers in more than 200 cities on the mainland.

In Hong Kong, Audi was the first German carmaker to launch a full electric model, the e-tron SUV in 2019, followed by the e-tron Sportback the next year.

“In today’s mobility industry, customers are more interested in the level of automation and driving range provided by an electric vehicle,” said Tian Maowei, a sales manager at Yiyou Auto Service in Shanghai.

“Mercedes, Audi and BMW, as stars of the oil-guzzling ICE cars, will have to adapt to the changing tastes of consumers to regain their competitive edge in the Chinese market.”