VW: All Our Electric Car Platforms Are Yours: Opens Up MEB EV To All

By: Mark Kane

Mar 4, 2019 at 6:22pm ET

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VW seeks the widest possible deployment of the MEB

Volkswagen Group officially announced that it is opening its Modular Electric Toolkit (MEB) platform for a wide range of all-electric cars to other manufacturers.

The idea behind the move is to lower costs through increased production scale, beyond the already high target of 15 million MEB cars (the first wave) that will be produced by all the brands within the VW Group.

The first external partner to develop its own model on MEB is e.GO Mobile AG, founded by Prof. Dr. Günther Schuh in 2015 at the RWTH Aachen Campus.

VW underlines that MEB can be utilized in both high-volume production, as well as in short-series like e.GO cars or Volkswagen I.D. Buggy.

"e.GO Mobile AG based in Aachen, Germany, is to be the world’s first external partner to use the electric platform to launch further electric vehicles in addition to Volkswagen’s model range. A dedicated vehicle project is already being planned. Volkswagen is highlighting the MEB’s variability even for small series with the ID. BUGGY on show at the Geneva International Motor Show."

Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG, commented:

“Our Modular Transverse Toolkit proved we are platform experts. Over 100 million of our vehicles are based on that particular platform. With the MEB platform, we are now transferring this successful concept to the electric era and opening it to other carmakers. The MEB is to establish itself as the standard for e-mobility. Based on the MEB, we will make individual mobility CO₂-neutral, safe, comfortable and accessible to as many people as possible. Because the MEB even makes the cost-efficient production of emotional small-series vehicles like the ID. BUGGY possible. I am delighted that e.GO has become the first partner to use our electric platform as the basis for a jointly-defined vehicle project.”

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Prof. Dr. Günther Schuh, CEO of e.GO Mobile AG, added:

“We are extremely pleased the Volkswagen Group offered us this cooperation. We can contribute e.GO’s agile product development and our strength in building small-series vehicles based on extruded aluminum spaceframes. And the MEB platform will make us faster, more robust and cost-efficient.”