Volkswagen Group’s Audi and Porsche brand names will come together with forces on vehicle development, the two upmarket brands stated on Wednesday, to assist the world’s largest automaker save loan following its pricey emissions test cheating scandal.
The pact comes as Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller, who formerly worked as Porsche’s CEO and Audi’s head of product management, settles a strategy to step up advancement of autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles and digital services.
Porsche and Audi stated the focus was on jointly establishing shared vehicle platforms, modules and parts, in a deal that follows a duration of extreme internal rivalry for development resources.
Tasks will be jointly headed by agents from each brand. In the near future, joint groups will prepare the particular areas of cooperation and specify a roadmap to 2025, they stated.
Porsche, taken over by Volkswagen 2012, has become a strong competing engineering center to Audi. Porsche’s MSB platform, utilized for its four-seater Panamera model, has been embraced for VW group’s next generation Bentley Continental design even though Audi had established a similar offering.
Because the group’s emissions test scandal on diesel engines was revealed in September 2015, Audi has lost 2 research and development chiefs and the head of its automotive electronic devices department, who did pioneering operation in the area of autonomous driving and battery technology.
Audi is still the group’s center of excellence for sport-utility automobiles, a rewarding and growing market, where it provides platforms to Porsche and other brands like Bentley.
With self-driving automobiles most likely to play a major future function in the industry, Audi likewise develops autonomous automobiles for the group.
