AUTONEWS

VW joins the Chinese in developing a low-value platform

Volkswagen, the largest European manufacturer and the leading brand of one of the largest global groups in the automotive industry, appears to have invested in Chinese manufacturers to accelerate the development of its electric vehicles. Initially, the objective is focused on gaining competitiveness in China, a market in which the German manufacturer had a say in the days of combustion engine vehicles, but where today it is far from leadership and far from the profits it was supposed to guarantee. operation in the Asian country. It is obvious that all improvements applied to vehicles destined for China will also end up benefiting models for other markets.

According to Reuters, the German giant announced the collaboration with the Chinese from Xpeng to develop a new platform for battery vehicles, called China Electrical Architecture (CEA). VW Tecnology Company and Cariad China are directly involved in this project, the controversial division of VW designed to design the necessary software and whose poor performance has already led to the removal of the German group's previous CEO. According to the German brand, CEA aims to guarantee a 40% cost reduction when compared to the current MEB, the platform used by the ID range, which will allow it to recover lost competitiveness and compete against cheaper Chinese vehicles.

Improvements made in terms of software and, above all, hardware contribute greatly to reducing platform costs, as there is a 30% reduction in the number of electronic control units (ECU or, to put it simply, a type of “ computers”). This not only cuts costs, but will facilitate over-the-air updates, as there will now be a central computer, complemented by some subsystems. This is a solution that Tesla has had since the beginning and that the Chinese later adopted, with the CEA allowing VW to now have the same type of arguments.

Interestingly, the CEA platform that VW is developing with Xpeng — where the Germans own 4.99% — is expected to hit the market in 2026 in mid-range models, such as the ID.3, ID.4, ID.5 and ID.7, but it will not be the only one from the German brand to be developed with Chinese manufacturers. In collaboration with the Chinese SAIC and FAW, VW is developing the CMP (China Main Platform), exclusively aimed at small and cheaper vehicles, essential for the Chinese market. VW China CEO, Ralf Brandstätter, summarizes the strategy transparently, stating that “the competition is terrible, so we have to adapt our cost structure if we want to be competitive in this environment”.

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