VW EV Decoder Ring

Hat tip to Apple News (apple.news/Adc-k1z4WPyGVGEjkLFK-rg) and to Fossbytes (https://fossbytes.com/4-new-electric-cars-make-millions-evs-audi/) for explaining the various platforms that VW is going to use over the next few years. To review

Tesla platforms

To review, car manufacturers often use the same guts underneath and put different stuff on top as an example, here is how Tesla works. A platform basically means how much is shared between cars. Tesla designs are of course dedicated electric and use a skateboard design where the batteries are low and then the motors are inline with the wheels which means that they have lots of room in the frunk and in the interior.

Model S. The original platform
Model X. This was supposed to be on the same platform as the Model S, but overdesign led it to only have 30% parts commonality, they most significantly use the same battery and motors, so you could call them close cousins
Model 3 and Y. These are supposed to share 70% of the same parts.
Semi. This is their semitractor trailer, but they do use the same motors as the Model 3
Pickup. We don’t know what they will do here.

VW Platforms

VW has lots and lots of different brands literally from Skoda to VW to Porsche to Lamborghini, but they also have very similar platforms underneath, here is how their Electric Vehicles will roll out:

MLB (Modular Longitudinal Matrix)

Introduced in 2009, this is not a ground-up electric vehicle which explains the many compromises in the Audi e-tron. In fact, as the MLB Evo it is used in the Audi A4, A5 and Q7. It will also be used in the Audio -eTron Sportback.

MEB (Modular Electric Base)

I actually don’t know the exactly what the MEB stands for, but it is the first VW Group platform that is for dedicated electric vehicles. This includes the upcoming Audi Q4 e-tron and the VW ID 3

J1 Platform

This is the base for the Porsche Taycan, it is designed electric only and features cutouts in it’s skateboard, so that passengers can sit lower, they actually sit inside the batteries if you want to think of it that way. The Audio e-tron GT will also suse this.