Sometimes, the children just refuse to get along, leaving it up to the parent to swoop in, clean up the messy bits and make a judgment. Such is the case at the Volkswagen Group, where corporate stepchildren Audi and Porsche were both fighting for the right to develop future sports cars and luxury sedans for the German auto conglomerate’s portfolio of brands.
In the end, Porsche won the heart of Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn. This means Porsche will develop the platforms that will underpin future high-performance machinery using front-mid and rear-mid-mounted drivetrains for itself, Audi and Lamborghini. Porsche will also be tasked with the next generation “modular standard matrix” platform for its Panamera sedan, which will also be shared with Bentley.
Audi won’t be left out of the engineering process, though, and will take the lead in the development of the group’s “modular longitudinal matrix,” which makes up the guts of such vehicles as the Audi A4, A5 and Q5. Finally, Volkswagen will continue work on its volume platform, the “modular transverse matrix” that is used by such models as the Volkswagen Golf and Audi A3.
The goal of all these specific engineering assignments? Financial savings, of course. By consolidating multiple platforms into a few modular structures will cut the VW Group’s procurement and production costs by 20 percent and engineering costs by 30 percent.
