Volkswagen’s new China strategy signals power shift

In the last couple of years, the development of electric vehicles (EVs) across the Volkswagen Group has been hit by problems at its software division, Cariad.  This has led to delays in the adoption of the SSP (Scalable Systems Platform) architecture across a series of new models planned for Audi initially, but also the Volkswagen brand itself. Also, various Audi concept cars, such as Grandsphere and Artemis, appear to have stalled in their development phase, while the much-vaunted new Trinity factory, which was originally due to be built near to the group’s home plant at Wolfsburg, has been cancelled due to financial constraints. Instead, Volkswagen will now build a new factory within the existing footprint of its Wolfsburg site rather than at an entirely new site.  Models based on the SSP have been delayed until 2029-30 and so the recently announced Chinese partnerships taken on an even more urgent dimension.