The Volkswagen Group has developed four modular platforms to support electric cars across its portfolio of brands, and will also share some of these to help spread the cost of introducing electrification throughout its operations.
One of these, the MEB for small and medium mainstream cars, made its debut in September in the Volkswagen ID 3 and will be shared with Ford in a deal announced in July.
VW's other EV platforms are designed for premium cars and could be shared with rival automakers, too, specifically the PPE platform being developed by Audi and Porsche for medium and large cars, Bloomberg reported last week citing comments made by Ulrich Widmann, the head of Audi's side of the PPE development team.
Volkswagen Group PPE modular EV platform
“Sharing technology to generate scale effects is the only way to achieve the turnaround in electric cars, both economically and ecologically,” he said. “There’s definitely interest. We’re having conversations.”
Widmann didn't mention any names of the interested parties, though given the high cost of developing a new EV platform it would make sense for some smaller automakers such as Aston Martin to license a platform instead of starting from scratch.
The PPE platform makes its debut in 2021, likely in Porsche's next-generation Macan which is confirmed to be an EV. However, most of the models based on the PPE will likely come from Audi which is committed to launching at least 20 EVs by 2025. The automaker in late September teased a concept for an A5 Sportback-like car based on the PPE. Interestingly, there are rumors the entire A5 range might be phased out after the current generation, so perhaps Audi is planning to replace it with an electric equivalent.
