Production of the ID.Unyx 08
At Hefei, VW draws new hope for its business in China
In little more than five years, the Hefei plant has become VW’s pivotal hub for its long-awaited comeback in China. A key model, the ID.Unyx 08, is already rolling off the production line there.
When people in the horsepower business talk about the Panda, everyone thinks of Fiat. Everyone except Ralf Brandstätter. As a member of the VW management board he is responsible for the Chinese market and has his own panda project: it is named after “Meng Meng” from Berlin Zoo, a panda that China lent to Germany as a thank you for the good cooperation. In the meantime, the cuddly bear has internally become a symbol of the joint venture with Xpeng, which was concluded in 2023 and is now giving Brandstätter his first panda offspring. At the end of March, advance sales of the ID. Unyx 08 began – described by many as the most advanced electric model in VW’s global portfolio – at an entry price of around 30,000 euros, remarkably low by European standards.
Where the ID. Unyx 08 is built in China
The five-metre-long SUV, with 800-volt batteries of 82 or 95 kWh for standard ranges of up to 730 kilometres, is built in Hefei in Anhui province, about two-thirds of the way from Beijing to Shanghai. Behind it stands another joint venture that the Lower Saxons entered into with JAC in 2017, alongside their cooperation with SAIC in the south and FAW in the north.
“At the time, Hefei was chosen as the location because we were already working together with JAC, and because of the development of the site with a focus on electromobility, its geographical advantages and the growing talent pool,” says Rogerio Pereira, who heads production planning at the plant.
But instead of simply slipping under the roof of the Chinese partner, which holds only a 25 percent stake, Volkswagen Anhui has, in just 18 months, built a new plant with 510,000 square metres of hall space and a current annual capacity of 360,000 vehicles.
In parallel, they have conjured up a components plant from scratch, designed for an annual capacity of 150,000 to 180,000 batteries. And of course, they have settled several dozen of their suppliers in two large parks. After all, VW wants as much local content as possible in its cars for China. “But ‘from China for China’ here applies not only to the cars, but also to the equipment,” says Pereira. Around 90 percent of the machinery and installations in the plant – from the 1,200 robots in body construction alone to the automated guided vehicles and the switchgear cabinets – therefore come from domestic manufacturers, or at least from the Chinese joint ventures of the major Western industry players.
New paths in production
In the process they have set a few records and broken new ground, says Pereira proudly: the body shop not only has the highest level of automation of all VW sites in China, but is also the first in which every single body-in-white is measured automatically at several stations without exception. “Of course, there is a manual quality inspection at the end. But this way we can identify and eliminate systematic errors more quickly.”
The fact that construction went so quickly is not only down to smoother processes in China, says Pereira. “We also naturally benefited from our experience with the other joint ventures in the north (FAW Volkswagen, editor’s note) and south (SAIC Volkswagen, editor’s note) and were able to transfer experienced staff. They did have to get used to a new set-up, but at least they were already familiar with the way Volkswagen works. That meant we did not have to start from scratch.” There are currently 2,300 employees working in Hefei. But VW is continuing to recruit, because with the ramp-up of three new models this year there is still a lot planned here.
ID.Unyx 08 with Xpeng places different demands
The first car to roll off the line here in July 2023 was the Cupra Tavascan for export to Europe, which accordingly is also based on the MEB platform exported from Europe. Six months later, the first China model followed, the ID.Unyx 06, likewise on an MEB architecture.
“And now we have already had to rebuild again,” says Pereira. As the first model from the “Meng Meng family”, the ID.Unyx 08 uses partner Xpeng’s Sepa 2.0 platform, which does not just run down the same line as if nothing had changed. All the more so because the platforms are fitted out so differently, says the production planner. They not only have different batteries with different capacities from various suppliers, but also completely different high-tech equipment that has to be taken into account during assembly. The ID.Unyx 08, for example, is prepared for the most advanced level of autonomous driving currently approved in China and therefore not only has the corresponding computing power on board, but also eleven cameras and fifteen radars, all of which ultimately have to be installed and often calibrated as well.
This is where the new CEA platform is being designed
And even if there will soon be a second model in the Meng-Meng family, the challenges for Pereira are still not resolved. Because with the “China Electrical Architecture (CEA)” he will in future have to integrate a third platform, especially if he moves further away from MEB with a major update and relies on Chinese structures.
They have put this modular system together just a stone’s throw from the plant. Because in Hefei they are not only building a third of the new models with which VW wants to make its comeback in China, and have therefore planned plenty of reserve capacity in the plant. This is also where the new development centre of the Lower Saxons for the world’s largest car market is located.
To this end they founded the Volkswagen Group China Technology Company, which operates the largest R&D centre outside Wolfsburg, with 100,000 square metres, more than 100 laboratories and test rigs as well as its own test track. Officially opened in 2024 after four years of construction and an investment of around one billion euros, this is where the threads of all three joint ventures come together. Here VW has developed the China Electric Architecture (CEA), the group’s first zonal E/E architecture specifically for the Chinese market, as well as two electrified vehicle platforms, CMP and CSP.
In China, VW’s development time is melting away
It’s not just about using local developments to better match the particular tastes of Chinese customers, delve more deeply into their digital ecosystem and offer closer connectivity. It is also about finally getting up to “China speed”, says Brandstätter. And in fact, the group is slowly picking up the pace, reporting a few weeks less development time with each new model. From over three years, development times have already been cut to two years, and there is much more to come: group CEO Oliver Blume has announced more than 20 new energy vehicles (NEVs), more than half of them for the core brand. The empty halls to the left of the main entrance in Hefei therefore probably won’t stay empty for much longer.
How VW puts sustainability into practice in Hefei
As VW’s first joint venture in China devoted exclusively to electric vehicles, they have of course paid attention to a green footprint in Hefei right from the start, says production expert Pereira, who enthuses for example about Volkswagen’s first paint shop in China whose wastewater is phosphate-free. The factory runs on green electricity, and there is also a smart logistics project that is connected to a smart mobility initiative run by the city authorities, for which VW uses three electric lorries that cover almost 150,000 kilometres per year and in the process save nearly 100 tonnes of CO2.
And even the robots are helping in the drive for sustainability, automatically switching to an energy‑saving standby mode during breaks, conversions or other downtime. Fittingly for bee‑busy China, even machines get their well‑earned lunch break.
The VW site in Hefei in pictures:
