For most of automotive history, vehicles could be sorted into one of two categories based on how they were built: body-on-frame, such as today's full-size pickups and big SUVs, or unibody, which includes almost everything else in the market.
Body-on-frame and unibody construction are not going anywhere anytime soon, but the development of battery-electric vehicles from Tesla and others has introduced a third manufacturing method — one offering designers far more freedom to experiment while helping automakers save money through commonality.
It's known as the skateboard, and it was developed almost two decades ago by forward-looking engineers at General Motors. Now it's the method used to build Teslas as well as the Audi e-tron, the first of 70 full-electric models Volkswagen Group plans over the next decade, accounting for 22 million vehicles globally across its 12 brands.
The e-tron, an electric crossover, is to be one of the first non-Tesla skateboard vehicles to hit the market. It is being rolled out across Europe now and is scheduled to begin arriving this month in the U.S.
Built in Brussels, the e-tron is built in two sections that are mated together in a process far closer to body-on-frame than unibody construction.
The lower section, or skateboard, is built around a 710-kg (1,565-pound) enclosed battery pack composed of 36 power modules in a welded aluminum spaceframe. Individual modules are connected with almost 3.9 km (2.4 miles) of wire across 600 electrical connections to deliver electricity from the 95 kilowatt-hour battery pack, which is about the size of a double bed.
Attached to the power pack are two or three electric motors, depending on the performance level, mounted to the rear and front axles.
Kerrigan Advisors’ proprietary annual OEM Survey of over 100 executives reveals that the majority of respondents are worried about the financial impact of Chinese automakers’ growing global market share, and most expect that the EV transition to be slower than expected. The survey also queried executives on their outlooks for dealership valuations and profitability, as well as their expectations for the future of dealer networks and facility requirements.
On a parallel assembly line in Brussels, the other half of the e-tron is built in a way that would look familiar to anyone who has worked in or toured an auto assembly plant. The top half of the two-row performance crossover goes through body, paint and initial trim before what is known in the plant as "the marriage."
The upper and lower halves of the e-tron are slowly combined, with the skateboard's four raised suspension elements carefully guided into their places in the top hat.
The two assemblies are joined together using a series of flow-drill screws. Most of the marriage is done automatically by robots, while humans are needed to align the suspension elements.
After the two halves of the e-tron are married, the vehicle is sent to final trim before being shipped to dealers worldwide.
For an automaker such as Volkswagen, which has broad battery-electric plans, skateboard manufacturing is key in terms of flexibility and scale.
VW's two main skateboard full-electric platforms — MEB for mass market cars and PPE for performance-oriented vehicles from brands including Porsche and Audi — are flexible enough for designers to customize size and characteristics across various vehicles and even segments.
In Volkswagen's plans, for example, the Golf-sized ID, the ID Crozz crossover and the retro-styled version of VW's former Microbus called the ID Buzz will ride on versions of the MEB platform.
