The Americans from Ford are shaking hands with the Germans from Volkswagen once again this year, as the two companies agreed to expand the scope of the collaboration announced a few months ago. And the official announcement of this expansion confirms earlier rumors about a passenger vehicle tie-up.
The love story between the two officially began in January 2019, when a deal was struck to co-develop commercial vans and medium-sized pickup trucks for the global market as soon as 2022. It since expanded to include collaboration on an autonomous vehicle platform AV and an investment in AV startup Argo AI.
But the biggest evolution of the initial agreement is the fact that Ford will build at least one electric passenger car for the European market using Volkswagen’s MEB platform.
This technology was created by the Germans with a single purpose: underpin the line of electric vehicles called ID. As a bonus, if the platform could be sold to others, all the better.
With this week’s agreement, Ford becomes Volkswagen’s first customer for the platform, one that doesn’t plan to mess around. The Blue Oval set a very ambitious target for the model it plans to launch in 2023: 600,000 units of it are to be made and sold over six years, with a second model to be launched if all goes well with this one.
“Looking ahead, even more customers and the environment will benefit from Volkswagen’s industry-leading EV architecture,” said in a statement Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess.
"Our global alliance is beginning to demonstrate even greater promise, and we are continuing to look at other areas on which we might collaborate.”
MEB is a modular car platform that can be used for various types of cars. It is an evolution of the MBQ that allows the deployment of batteries with different capacities for ranges that can be more than 550 kilometers (341 miles).
The first use of the MEB on an electric car is the ID.3, expected to hit the roads later this year.
But the biggest evolution of the initial agreement is the fact that Ford will build at least one electric passenger car for the European market using Volkswagen’s MEB platform.
This technology was created by the Germans with a single purpose: underpin the line of electric vehicles called ID. As a bonus, if the platform could be sold to others, all the better.
With this week’s agreement, Ford becomes Volkswagen’s first customer for the platform, one that doesn’t plan to mess around. The Blue Oval set a very ambitious target for the model it plans to launch in 2023: 600,000 units of it are to be made and sold over six years, with a second model to be launched if all goes well with this one.
“Looking ahead, even more customers and the environment will benefit from Volkswagen’s industry-leading EV architecture,” said in a statement Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess.
"Our global alliance is beginning to demonstrate even greater promise, and we are continuing to look at other areas on which we might collaborate.”
MEB is a modular car platform that can be used for various types of cars. It is an evolution of the MBQ that allows the deployment of batteries with different capacities for ranges that can be more than 550 kilometers (341 miles).
The first use of the MEB on an electric car is the ID.3, expected to hit the roads later this year.