Report: VW Wants to Share Its EV Platform with Competitors

While some automakers are still waiting to get into the EV game in earnest, Volkswagen is going all in. It has previously claimed that it plans to sell a million EVs per year by 2025 and build at least 15 million vehicles on its MEB modular electric platformin the first phase of its big EV push. If its latest plans work out, though, the MEB bones could end up underpinning all sorts of other brands' cars, too.

According toReuters, Michael Jost, Volkswagen's head of brand strategy, recently told the German newspaperTagesspiegelthat the German automaker may allow competitors to use the MEB platform for EVs of their own. From the sound of it, these are serious conversations, too, not early discussions. Jost also reportedly told the paper he wants MEB to become "a standard not only for the VW Group."

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The report didn't say which automakers are currently talking with Volkswagen about borrowing its EV platform, but since VW recently announced a formal partnership with Ford,the Blue Oval will probably be the first. The report mentions more than one competitor, though, so more brands may follow Ford's lead.

Considering how expensive electric cars will be for the next several years, it makes sense that automakers would want to save money on internal platform development and, in VW's case, amortize the costs of the one it already has. Also, while it will certainly make differentiating vehicles more difficult form a driving standpoint, it could encourage more creativity and risk-taking in design, and that can only be a good thing.

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