with advances being made in the space of months there will be a lot of transformation in china and we need to carefully watch the situation said the ceo adding that carmakers had to be nimble in the design development and launch of new models in those aspects if we were slow we would be left behind hitech natives bill russo a former chrysler executive who now heads shanghaibased consultancy automobility said global brands need to turn the situation around quickly because they controlled less than 20 of chinas only growth auto market chinese brands are wining the race to ev said russo adding that consumers shift to cars that are essentially smartphones on four wheels appeared irreversible and that traditional carmakers were having trouble keeping up i think its a secular shift toward hitech he said of the consumer demand for a usercentric digital services experience with a focus on interface connectivity and apps traditional companies are not hitech natives volkswagen group brands including volkswagen audi bentley lamborghini porsche and skoda have led the market for much of the past two decades alongside general motors marques such as buick chevrolet and cadillac the two global groups had overall auto market shares of almost 13 and 12 respectively in china last year according to lmc automotive detroit giant gm also has a 44 stake in the locally controlled saicgmwuling auto sgmw venture and includes its sales in group numbers though sgmw does not make american brands only wuling and baojun cars gm is now focused on winning over younger buyers in big cities that have hitherto largely snubbed its models according to two people familiar with the automakers business in china the group has announced electrification plans to spend more than 35 billion globally by 2025 including more than 30 new evs over 20 of them in china starting this year with the launch of the allelectric cadillac lyriq crossover suv the two sources said the lyriq launch would be followed by an electric buick suv and a smaller sportier electric crossover both also planned for as early as this year sales of buicks have declined 32 over the last five years to 828600 vehicles in 2021 while chevrolet has shrunk more than half to 269000 vehicles according to lmc automotive gm told reuters it was aiming to install capacity to produce 1 million evs a year by 2025 in china adding that demand for the buick velite nev family and chevrolet menlo ev both grew significantly in 2021 and the first three months of this year it said it was deploying smart technologies including handsfree driver assistance on highways aviationgrade cyber security and overtheair software updates autobahn speed volkswagen which is spending around 55 billion globally on evs by 2026 launched its newgeneration of id series in china early last year but missed its goal of selling 80000 to 100000 cars last year it aims to sell 160000 to 200000 id cars this year though it has sold only