Stand-up comedian Feng Zihao says that as a post-00s, his first car was an 18-year-old Jetta. An 18-year vehicle age, converted to human age, would be centenarian, right? 160,000 kilometers, and it still runs quite happily, and maintenance and repairs are super cheap—easy to keep.

The Jetta's toughness and durability are widely praised. I looked through history: in 1996, a Jetta in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province set a record of 600,000 kilometers without a major overhaul, and at the time FAW-Volkswagen specially rewarded the owner with a brand-new Jetta.

The first Jetta A2 rolled off the assembly line at FAW Car on December 5, 1991. On July 1, 1992, FAW-Volkswagen's temporary final assembly line went into production, and the first SKD-assembled Jetta rolled off the line. Thirty-five years later, the Jetta has 5.3 million owners and has grown from a single model into an independent brand: on March 22, 2019, the Jetta brand was officially launched in Chengdu.

The reason for talking about history here is that the Jetta M6 was launched on October 22, and this all-electric family sedan opens a new era for the Jetta brand.

The launch event venue was quite close to FAW-Volkswagen's Chengdu branch; the Jetta M6 was born in the Chengdu Economic and Technological Development Zone, so the event had a strong Sichuan flavor: bamboo charm, teahouses, bobobo chicken, mahjong... full of the breath of daily life. Isn't this ease and comfort exactly the most important trait of the Jetta M6 all-electric family sedan?

FAW-Volkswagen knows how to put on a launch event. On March 8, 1998, FAW-Volkswagen held the launch ceremony for the new Jetta King sedan at the China World Trade Center in Beijing—this is the first documented new-car launch ceremony in Chinese automotive history. With the Jetta M6 launch event, FAW-Volkswagen pulled off something new again: no reading off PPT slides, no piling up specs, but more talk about feelings, using stand-up comedy to express its understanding and definition of the Jetta. Even the clothing was thought through—each person on stage had a signature color corresponding to the six car colors. Quality, safety, intelligence, comfort, price—six aspects all in one step, each person covered one, and together they summed up the Jetta M6's selling point: "Under 100,000, all in one step."

It really is under 100,000: the most expensive 9.98-million-yuan 555 Ultra version offers 2820mm of generous space, 555km of long range, driver assistance with highway and urban NOA and full-scenario parking, plus quality you don't usually see and safety you need at critical moments.

And the entry version at 7.98 million yuan already has driver assistance functions such as intelligent cruise assist, lane change by stalk, and automatic emergency braking; an intelligent cockpit with Doubao, Qianwen, and DeepSeek onboard; full coverage of phone-car connectivity with CarPlay, HiCar, and Carlink; and range of 465km. In terms of cockpit experience, safety equipment, and many other aspects, the three versions remain highly consistent.

The Jetta M6, inside and out, has the feel of a new-energy vehicle, and the toughness of the old Jetta will of course be carried on in the Jetta M6. Jetta's "Old Ma" (Dirk Mayer, general manager of Jetta Automotive Technology) said: Jetta's quality cannot be "about right."

As for whether this statement is put into practice, we need to look at the Jetta M6's subsequent user reputation, but the manufacturer is giving users reassurance in advance: for the first non-operating owner: lifetime warranty on the three electric systems, lifetime backing for automatic parking, lifetime free full-vehicle inspection, lifetime warranty on original parts, and if the vehicle spontaneously combusts due to three-electric quality issues, lifetime compensation. It is clear that Jetta is quite confident in its car. In the fuel era, toughness meant durable three core components and cheap parts; for an EV, reliability means stable three electric systems, stable quality control, and after-sales backing.

Jetta is an old hand in the auto world, but its new way of expressing itself and new product form give people a brand-new experience. This keeping pace with the times is just like a line from Dong Xiuhui, director, party secretary, and general manager of FAW-Volkswagen Automotive Co., Ltd., in his opening speech: "The launch event below is handed over to the young people."

Every era has its own 100,000-yuan family sedan, for the young families of that time.