Volkswagen started developing new electric vehicle architecture created for Chinese market with Xpeng. As you know, at the end of July last year, the German group announced its intention to invest about $700 million in the Chinese automaker. This operation allowed the Germans to acquire approximately 4.99% of Xpeng’s capital.
Now both companies have announced that they have begun work on a new modular electrical/electronic architecture that will be used on future BEVs under the Volkswagen brand, which will be released on the Chinese market from 2026. The goal of the new project is to achieve reduce development costs and complexity.
Therefore, Volkswagen and Xpeng are working on China Electrical Architecture (CEA). According to the above, the project is being implemented by specialists from Xpeng, Volkswagen China Technology Company (VCTC) and CARIAD China. The new architecture has also been developed to enable the rapid expansion of digital services in the German company’s vehicles.
Advanced features such as autonomous driving can be easily integrated and continuously updated thanks to the support of artificial intelligence. OTA updates. By reducing the complexity of the system and the number of control units present, the new architecture aims to reduce costs for China Core Platform (CMP) in China by 40% compared to MEB platforms. With the new architecture, the number of control units present in previous architectures can be reduced by up to 30%.
In short, Volkswagen has explored a new architecture that reduces the number of wires and componentsi to reduce costs and make cars cheaper to produce. Several other car manufacturers have followed this path, including Tesla. The goal of the German group in this project isgain market share in China. The first model to appear as a result of cooperation between Volkswagen and Xpeng, as is known, will be an SUV. Ralph BrandstatterMember of the Board of Management of Volkswagen, commented:
With our “In China, for China” strategy, we are strengthening the innovation potential of the Volkswagen Group in China. By expanding our partnership with XPENG and continuously integrating into the Chinese industrial ecosystem, we will be able to align our products even faster with the needs of Chinese customers. Both partners bring their own experience to this goal. This improves efficiency, optimizes cost structure and accelerates development speed. High profitability and rapid growth are critical to our competitiveness in the dynamic Chinese market. This means we are taking a leading role in the era of connected vehicles.
Source: HD Motori
Ashley Fitzgerald is an accomplished journalist in the field of technology. She currently works as a writer at 24 news breaker. With a deep understanding of the latest technology developments, Ashley’s writing provides readers with insightful analysis and unique perspectives on the industry.