Porsche, Audi to develop joint electric car platform to save costs

FRANKFURT-Reuters

Porsche and Audi, Volkswagen’s main luxury car divisions, plan to develop a joint platform for electric vehicles that will enable them significantly cut down on costs, German newspapers quoted their chief executives as saying.

“By 2025, we’re facing a low single-digit billion euro sum to develop the architecture,” Audi CEO Rupert Stadler told both the Stuttgarter Zeitung and Stuttgarter Nachrichten on Feb. 10.

“If both would act on their own, costs would be 30 percent higher,” Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said, adding Audi was hiring 550 developers for the project and Porsche 300.

From 2021 onwards, both businesses want to bring several models to the streets based on the joint platform, with Stadler saying that would build two sedan cars in Neckarsulm and two sports utility models at its Ingolstadt base.

Porsche’s Blume said the sportscar maker could build its first model based on the joint architecture in Leipzig, where it is already assembling its Macan sport-utility model.

“I currently see good chances for Leipzig,” Blume said.

The Stuttgart-based firm said it would spend more than six billion euros ($7.5 billion) in developing hybrid and battery-powered cars over the coming five years.

Of the additional three billion euros being put on the table, some 500 million euros will go towards developing Porsche’s flagship all-electric vehicle known as the Mission E, slated for release in late 2019.