One analyst on the Volkswagen Group’s annual results call this week hopefully put it to CEO Oliver Blume that Volkswagen might want to partner with a Chinese firm to build the ID 1 small EV locally. Maybe MG parent SAIC, a long-time partner of Volkswagen in China, which is looking to build cars in Europe.
The answer came back: no. Volkswagen is building the ID 1 at its Portuguese plant on a Volkswagen EV platform, and while the car might use Chinese-supplied modules, this is a Volkswagen project and as such is so close to the edge in terms of profit margin that neither Skoda, Seat nor Cupra will get a version.
