The VW Group will unleash ten Audi e-tron models in the eastern city of Hefei, in a region with some 80 km (50 miles) of roads featuring intelligent vehicle-friendly infrastructure. Its residents will be able to hail an e-tron using a dedicated VW app.
Audi’s premium electric crossover will travel across the city’s Haiheng district, home to roughly 400,000 people, reports Autonews Europe.
“This is our first-ever pilot project in China that seeks to link the automotive, electrical and digital worlds to the benefit of consumers,” said VW China exec Weiming Soh, who added that this trial run could be replicated in other cities too, although there’s no timetable for that.
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Hefei seems like the perfect place to be if you’re a so-called “new age automaker”. Take Nio for example – the Chinese brand got a $1 billion investment from the city back in April, and operates a factory in the region. VW however also likes this city due to its close relationship with JAC Motor (the German carmaker’s smallest partner in China).
“We are very close with the Hefei government. They have the desire to do this and we jumped in,” added Soh. “Imagine if you want to build cars, you’re going to need a lot of suppliers, and that creates employment and so on. If we pick it as our base, we’re starting to do that.”
China has become a critical market for the development of autonomous-driving technology, with some of the nation’s biggest names in tech trying to make their way into the space – like Baidu.
