Volkswagen Group will produce 40 million autos on its new electrical “tremendous platform” that may exchange combustion-engine and full-electric platforms utilized by its manufacturers together with VW, Skoda, Seat, Audi and Porsche.
The automaker is accelerating the event of the Scalable Programs Platform (SSP) regardless of having solely just lately began the rollouts of its MEB electrical platform for quantity EVs and its PPE structure for upscale electrical vehicles.
The MEB platform underpins new-generation EVs together with the VW ID3 and ID4, Audi This fall e-tron and Skoda Enyaq, whereas the primary vehicles on the PPE platform would be the electrical Porsche Macan, which launches subsequent 12 months, and Audi Q6 e-tron, which is able to go on sale early 2023.
VW Group CEO Herbert Diess described SSP as a “tremendous platform” throughout the automaker’s “Technique 2030” marketing strategy presentation on July 13. The brand new structure will “guarantee prospects get the most effective product and high quality at the most effective worth,” Diess stated.
Porsche executives earlier this year questioned whether or not a single platform may embody the wants of manufacturers starting from Skoda to Porsche.
Nevertheless, VW Group’s growth chief Markus Duesmann, who can be Audi’s CEO, stated the design of the SSP platform with its differing ‘modules,’ battery sizes and physique lengths will enable loads of model differentiation.
“It is not going to be one measurement suits all. We will nonetheless handle particular autos and model necessities, by means of the mixture of the totally different modules,” he stated.
Duesmann addressed Porsche’s issues particularly. “Contemplating the scalability of modules, Porsche will have the ability to provide a devoted efficiency model for the highest specs,” he stated.
There could be overlap between the manufacturers, he stated. “We can use the identical mixture of E3 [software] stack, autonomous driving stack and powertrain for a Porsche entry mannequin and for the VW efficiency mannequin.”
Utilizing only one platform would imply simpler integration of advanced components similar to software program and electrical architectures, bringing helpful financial savings. “We’ll scale back at this time’s complexity by about 50 %. And I believe you may perceive what this implies for us when it comes to economies of scale,” Duesmann stated.
The VW Group will make investments round 800 million euros ($950 million) in a brand new R&D facility in Wolfsburg, the place the core of the SSP platform and its modules can be designed, Diess stated throughout the presentation.
Duesmann stated Audi’s Artemis venture will “spearhead main modules of the SSP beginning in 2025,” together with the E3 2.0 software program stack that permits Stage 4 autonomous driving in addition to a brand new battery cell expertise.
The Artemis venture is creating a brand new flagship electrical flagship automotive for the Audi, Porsche and Bentley manufacturers, anticipated in 2025. A second Audi mannequin on SSP badged Apollon will seem in 2026, Audi has stated.
Audi will preview its SSP-based vehicles with three Sphere concepts that can be unveiled within the subsequent 12 months.
“By the top of this decade, we may have rolled out as SSP throughout all of our core segments and all model teams,” Duesmann stated. By 2030, vehicles on the SSP platform would “already cowl a much bigger quantity than PPE and MEB put collectively,” he stated.
The discount of variants was key to making sure the group make wholesome earnings. “There are strict limits on the mixture of the totally different variants since that is essential to complexity and subsequently to the practicability and monetary success of SSP,” Duesmann stated.
VW model’s first mannequin to make use of SSP can be a production version of the Trinity electric sedan concept, deliberate to go on sale in 2026.
At VW Group’s annual assembly on July 22 Diess stated: “With the Trinity future venture, Volkswagen is introducing Artemis expertise into the amount phase, because it has already executed with the Modular Electrical Drive Toolkit (MEB).”