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VW Group to develop four new platforms
By Yoann Besnard on 27 November 2007 | 
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In an interview given to Automotive News Europe, VW brand board member for development, Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg revealed that Volkswagen group will release four new platforms in the coming years in order to achieve the 2018 target. With those new platforms, the German carmaker expects to reduce its cost by 40% thanks to components shared between the platforms and development times by one year.
The most important platform will be the MQB which will underpin up to 6 million vehicles every year. The platform will be flexible enough to equip a large range of vehicles from small cars to upper-premium models. According to some insiders, the MQB platform will be used as in many as 20 different models.
The second platform, dubbed MHB, will be featured by the new VW's rear-engine models, which will be sold over the world as a low cost model. Once again, one does expect to see the platform underpinning a few million vehicles. At the opposite of the range, the luxury models will have their own platform already used by the Audi A4 and A5. Dubbed MLB, it features a longitudinally mounted engine for front-drive and all-wheel-drive transmissions. The next A6 and A8 models will use the MLB platform. The future Phaeton and Bentley models will likely use the same underpinnings.
Finally, a fourth platform will be devoted to sports cars and will be used by the future Lamborghini models and the Audi R8.
With this new platform range, Volkswagen plans to increase sales from 5.7 million vehicles in 2006 to 10 million cars in 2018.
