The Volkswagen Group is one of the largest automaker companies in the world and they develop and manufacture for all vehicles that is within their group, which includes Audi, Skoda, Seat, Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti. Many of their vehicles share parts and technologies. In other words, they are experts in cross-brand sharing. Some of their cars even share bodyshells.

Things are going to get even more similar starting from next year when Volkswagen has announced that they will go through a technical overhaul for all their cars, mainly vehicles from Audi, Skoda, Seat and Volkswagen itself. The first car that will receive this treatment is the upcoming Audi A3 which will be released next year.

The Audi A3 will share parts with 40 other models. Parts such as chassis, axles, steering columns, drivetrains and etc. will save the company around €5 billion yearly. These shared parts and platforms can be lengthened, widened and enlarged to suit different variety of vehicles.

Volkswagen will also manufacture cars from different brands at one facility. This would make the production process faster and less complicated. It will reduce production costs by 20% and assembly times by 30%. The company is also setting aside around €62.4 billion in the next 5 years for upgrading their current manufacturing facilities in Germany.

This technical overhaul will stretch the basis of model platforms for Volkswagen. Just imagine the number of parts shared between the smallest Volkswagen model (which is the Polo), up to their mid-sized sedan (Passat). This might have a disadvantage if there is a fault with a certain part, and then many vehicles across different brands will be recalled. That means it could be in the hundreds of thousands of vehicles if that were to happen.

According to Volkswagen’s production chief, Hubert Waltl said, “Risks exist when you undertake far-reaching improvements, but the implementation process is manageable.” “This implementation creates a system that enables us to produce vehicles based on this architecture at any factory.”

I was wondering if any recall were to happen, that would make the recent Toyota recalls look like nothing. And if 40 different models were to share parts; that could make their cars look rather similar in a way.

Photo credit: burnyourfuel.com and cars.about.com

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