Volkswagen exploring another EV partnership in China, this time for Jetta
Volkswagen looks to be forming a new EV partnership in China, separate from its collaboration with XPeng Motors. According to a new report, Volkswagen is negotiating with Hangzhou-based EV startup Leapmotor to outsource its technology for its Jetta brand.
The media report from Cailian claims Volkswagen’s Jetta brand is holding talks with Leapmotor to use its technology with a focus on “economical electric cars,” citing sources.
A person familiar with the matter told reporters that FAW (Volkswagen’s JV partner) has issued an internal document saying, “After Xaiopeng, Volkswagen’s Jetta brand is negotiating cooperation with Leapmotor.”
However, if a deal is reached, it’s expected to differ from the collaboration with XPeng Motors (Xaipeng).
VW will utilize XPeng’s Edward platform, used in the G9 and P7 models, to launch two new electric models. The automaker invested $700 million for a nearly 5% stake in the Chinese EV maker.
Audi and Chinese state-owned manufacturer SAIC also confirmed a partnership a week before to speed up EV development in the region.
Volkswagen negotiating another EV partnership in China
Volkswagen’s new EV partnership is expected to be similar to the Audi-SAIC collaboration rather than the XPeng deal. According to the report, “This time FAW-Volkswagen is very likely to ‘buy out’ a certain generation of zero running platform technology.”
Jetta was once a popular Volkswagen brand, but the automaker broke it off in 2019, classifying it as a sub-brand.
Since then, Jetta has struggled to gain traction as the market moves to EVs. According to the report, Jetta’s sales fell by 13.48% to 146,900 units last year.
Industry insiders said the next three years will be critical for automotive intelligence development. The report notes German cars have the advantage in hardware but are lacking in the software department.
In the new EV era, customers are gravitating toward software-defined intelligent vehicles rather than basing their purchases strictly on looks. The industry insiders claimed:
If the cooperation with Leapmotor comes true, Volkswagen will fully rely on the technical strength of Chinese car companies to make up for its shortcomings in the field of intelligent driving.
They continued, “Volkswagen urgently needs the new energy vehicle technology of Chinese car companies to reverse disadvantages of the market.”
Several Jetta and Leapmotor models, such as the VS5 and VS7, are in the same price range, making the collaboration more accessible.
Leapmotor revealed a new EV platform this week as CEO Zhu Jiangming said the company was nearing deals with two foreign automakers to license its technology.
Electrek’s Take
Volkswagen has lost ground in China, a market it once dominated. The German automaker was surpassed by China’s largest EV maker BYD in passenger car sales in the first three months of the year, extending its lead through July.
As the report notes, Volkswagen is not only lagging behind rivals like BYD and Tesla, but up-and-coming EV makers like NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto are also gaining market share, in many cases, in the same segments as VW.
If the deal with Leapmotor goes through, Volkswagen will rely heavily on Chinese tech to carry sales in its most important market.
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Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
Read more: Thomas Built Buses debuts its next-gen electric school bus
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