Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Volkswagen AG to develop four all-new architectures

Volkswagen AG is a very big company. Largest in Europe and fourth in the world. That means a lot of parts bin and platform sharing goes on within the company in order to reduce costs and development time. So, to prepare for Volkswagen's entry into the next decade, where Volkswagen (the brand) plans to beat out Toyota for the top, the company is developing four all-new architectures to base new vehicles upon.

The first one is called the MQB and will be used for VAG's core models (from Fox to Passat, Audi TT and A3, and some Skodas and SEATs). Volkswagen expects that MQB will account for over 6 million vehicles a year worldwide once it's fully utilized by 2018. This architecture will cut costs up to 40% and development times by up to a year.

The MHB platform will be used for rear-engined minicars such as the up! concept already unveiled during the last three auto shows. The MLB platform, a longitudinal engine architecture, is already being used in the new A4 and A5.

The last platform is one for mid-engined cars that would be used for cars like the Audi R8 and Lamborghini Gallardo. This platform may also be used for a new, more affordable (as compared to a Veyron, that is) Bugatti that may already be in the development stages.

Source: German Car Blog