VW pushes ahead with 'super platform' for self-driving electric cars

Volkswagen Group will produce 40 million vehicles on its new electric "super platform" that will replace combustion-engine and full-electric platforms used by its brands including VW, Skoda, Seat, Audi and Porsche.

The automaker is accelerating the development of the Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) despite having only recently started the rollouts of its MEB electric platform for volume EVs and its PPE architecture for upscale electric cars.

The MEB platform underpins new-generation EVs including the VW ID3 and ID4, Audi Q4 e-tron and Skoda Enyaq, while the first cars on the PPE platform will be the electric Porsche Macan, which launches next year, and Audi Q6 e-tron, which will go on sale early 2023.

VW Group CEO Herbert Diess described SSP as a "super platform" during the automaker's "Strategy 2030" business plan presentation on July 13. The new architecture will "ensure customers get the best product and quality at the best price," Diess said.

Porsche executives earlier this year questioned whether a single platform could encompass the needs of brands ranging from Skoda to Porsche.

However, VW Group's development chief Markus Duesmann, who is also Audi's CEO, said the design of the SSP platform with its differing 'modules,' battery sizes and body lengths will allow plenty of brand differentiation.

"It will not be one size fits all. We can still address specific vehicles and brand requirements, through the combination of the different modules," he said.

Duesmann addressed Porsche's concerns specifically. "Considering the scalability of modules, Porsche will be able to offer a dedicated performance version for the top specifications," he said.

There would be overlap between the brands, he said. "We will be able to use the same combination of E3 [software] stack, autonomous driving stack and powertrain for a Porsche entry model and for the VW performance model."

Using just one platform would mean easier integration of complex elements such as software and electrical architectures, bringing valuable savings. "We will reduce today's complexity by about 50 percent. And I think you can understand what this means for us in terms of economies of scale," Duesmann said.

The VW Group will invest around 800 million euros ($950 million) in a new R&D facility in Wolfsburg, where the core of the SSP platform and its modules will be designed, Diess said during the presentation.

Duesmann said Audi's Artemis project will "spearhead major modules of the SSP starting in 2025," including the E3 2.0 software stack that allows Level 4 autonomous driving as well as a new battery cell technology.

The Artemis project is developing a new flagship electric flagship car for the Audi, Porsche and Bentley brands, expected in 2025. A second Audi model on SSP badged Apollon will appear in 2026, Audi has said.

Audi will preview its SSP-based cars with three Sphere concepts that will be unveiled in the next 12 months.

"By the end of this decade, we will have rolled out as SSP across all of our core segments and all brand groups," Duesmann said. By 2030, cars on the SSP platform would "already cover a bigger volume than PPE and MEB put together," he said.

The reduction of variants was key to ensuring the group make healthy profits. "There are strict limits on the combination of the different variants since this is crucial to complexity and therefore to the practicability and financial success of SSP," Duesmann said.

VW brand's first model to use SSP will be a production version of the Trinity electric sedan concept, planned to go on sale in 2026.

At VW Group's annual meeting on July 22 Diess said: "With the Trinity future project, Volkswagen is introducing Artemis technology into the volume segment, as it has already done with the Modular Electric Drive Toolkit (MEB)."