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Volkswagen Could Sell Their MQB Platform.. For A Price

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William Maley

Editor/Reporter – CheersandGears.com

March 28, 2012

Volkswagen has a lot riding on their new MQB platform. It cost the company $79 billion to develop and will underpin a vast majority of the brand’s upcoming cars, as well as a slew of new models.

Speaking at the VW Group profits announcement, Michael Macht, the board member in charge of group production, said the company could sell the platform to other companies.

“The next two to three years are exciting for us, and during this time we intend to keep the technology to ourselves. We do not wish to share our excellence. But in the medium to long term we could sell the technology. We would have to look at the opportunities and evaluate whether they made sense.”

Its hard to see Volkswagen selling the platform to one of their arch rivals. Most likely, Volkswagen will sell it to an automaker that poses no threat to them

Source: Autocar

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6 Comments

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G. David Felt

Premium Subscriber

March 28, 201214 yr

As big as VW is becoming and wanting to become, who would not be a rival? Plus I could be wrong here, but I thought pretty much all car companies had moved to universal platforms to be sold around the world so I just do not see this as that big of a deal. If anything, it would seem to say, VW has finally joined the party that everyone else already knew about.

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dwightlooi

Members

March 28, 201214 yr

$79 million? That must either be a mistake or they have figured out how to really reduce their engineer costs. The Alpha platform that underpins the ATS for instance carried a $1 billion ($1000 million price tag).

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Drew Dowdell

Editor-in-Chief

March 28, 201214 yr

79 million wouldn't even pay for engine development...

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Robert Hall

Members

March 28, 201214 yr (edited)

The original article says the platform investment was approx. 50 billion pounds, which is approx 79 billion USD.

Edited March 28, 201214 yr by Cubical-aka-Moltar

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G. David Felt

Premium Subscriber

March 28, 201214 yr

The original article says the platform investment was approx. 50 billion pounds, which is approx 79 billion USD.

:mind-blowing: WOW, Guess they better find some people who are willing to pay to use the platform if that is really what they spent on it. That just seems way out of line.

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William Maley

Editor

March 28, 201214 yr

its been fixed..

Quote

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By Drew Dowdell · 10 hours ago10 hr
Intake Manifold

Because why would you want to take a multi port fuel injected car and turn it into a carbed car? Also, it's a ton of work (if you even can make the thing fit under the hood) for not a lot of gain, and you're still having to run it through the 4-speed 4T80-E. There are other Northstar mods out there that will get better bang for the buck.

By Drew Dowdell · Tuesday at 01:32 PM1 day
Intake Manifold

Because why not?

By crvette_guy · Tuesday at 01:22 PM1 day
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American, European and Asian automakers just got put on notice by China.

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By G. David Felt · Monday at 07:28 PM2 days
Random Thoughts Thread

Welcome to the iCar as Jony Ives was the designer and lead during production. He could not get his iCar produced at Apple and so he got Ferrari to do it in an overpriced way. Ugly as heck, but hopefully the experience of actually driving it is better than the look.
@surreal1272 @ccap41

Ferrari should have released the auto as a Concept to get feedback from the public as this iCar is a styling failure. They could have take the Jaguar XJ220 and put in an electric powertrain and been far more successful than this iCar release they did without all the negativity it has generated.

Does Ferrari need to go electric? YES

Is this the right auto for them? NO
Is the software and driving dynamic worthy of a Ferrari? Unknown

By G. David Felt · Monday at 07:19 PM2 days