When you spend four years more than €60 billion (US$80 billion) in developing a groundbreaking new platform, then you better make sure that your investment will pay off for itself big time.
This is what the VW Group has done for its brand-new MQB platform, which is so flexible in terms of wheelbase, track width and seating positions that it will underpin a variety of different-sized models ranging from the Polo to the Passat – and everything else in between.
At the group’s profits announcement, it was revealed that in 2011, the number one European manufacturer increased its profits by more than 50 percent compared to 2010, to €11.3 billion (US$15 billion).
The VW Group, which is currently the world’s number two automotive manufacturer right behind General Motors, expects huge cost savings from the MQB which was launched in the new Audi A3 at the recent Geneva Motor Show and will underpin more than six million models from Audi, VW, Skoda and Seat models until 2018.
Michael Macht, the board member that heads group production, said: “The next two to three years will be exciting for us”. This is in line with CEO Martin Winterkorn’s statement that the new platform will require further investments until the end of 2013 but then “The payback should start to come. We have invested heavily in this technology, but we are convinced the benefits will be clear for the company”.
Macht said that they intend to keep the technology to themselves as they “don’t want to share our excellence”.
After investing so much on it, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Except that “sharing their excellence” probably has a time limit. Macht revealed that “in the medium to long term, we could sell the technology. We would have to look at the opportunities and evaluate whether they make sense.”
We suspect that many car manufacturers, especially from the world’s biggest car market, will form an orderly queue outside Wolfsburg if VW goes ahead with this plan.
Story References: VW , Autocar
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