Volkswagen CEO: we need to change e-car approach in China

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Volkswagen must change its approach to how it sells electric vehicles (EV) in China, the world's largest car market, Chief Executive Herbert Diess said, in a response to poor EV sales there.

"Sales are picking up but it requires focus and different approaches as the customers for the EVs are much younger and different to our customer base we are having with the more traditional brands like Volkswagen in China," Diess told journalists after first-half results release.

By the end of the year, Volkswagen wants to sell between 80,000 and 100,000 of its all-electric ID series in China. In the first half, deliveries of battery electric vehicles (BEV) in China stood at 18,285.

"We are noticing that we have to change our approach," Diess said.

"We have the financial power, we have the sales network, we are coming forward with new formats in the shopping malls, we are becoming much more digital and it's going fast because we are much faster in China than we are in the rest of the world."

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)