Volkswagen's development time for new vehicles will be reduced to 40 months

To successfully transform into a technology company, Volkswagen is making structural adjustments to its technology research and development department in Wolfsburg. As the largest engineering division in the Group, the Volkswagen brand R&D team with 11,500 employees will be a frontrunner in brand transformation. The focus of the adjustment is on redesigning the vehicle development process, focusing on software development, customer needs, and Volkswagen's future SSP eviction platform. The development of future vehicles will focus on functions rather than components. The move is expected to shorten development time by about a quarter, speed up software releases, and significantly accelerate the vehicle manufacturing process. The technology and development department will be an important pillar of the transformation of the Volkswagen Group.

"As cars evolve into electric-driven software products, car research and development needs to evolve in all aspects. In the R&D process and organizational management, we focus on the system and function of the vehicle rather than the components, making technology development more efficient and interconnected. We prioritize software, not hardware. This will shorten our vehicle development cycle by 25%. In the future, when the basic software architecture is ready, the vehicle project cycle will be shortened from 54 months to 40 months. Mr. Thomas Ulbrich, member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Passenger Car Brand, who oversees research and development, said: "This year, the Transformation of the Group will also be gradually evident through the Sandkamp R&D Center project in Wolfsburg. Volkswagen will invest 800 million euros to build the Sandkamp campus into a leading global automotive research and development center. We believe that the technology research and development department will also accelerate volkswagen's transformation into a technology company. ”

"Systems Engineering" shortens development cycles by around 25%

To enhance vehicle connectivity for optimal integration into the digital ecosystem, while continuously improving the user experience, it is necessary to redesign the vehicle development process. Vehicle development should be based on functions that meet user needs. As a result, the new R&D process will focus on the vehicle's functions and systems, rather than components. This is "systems engineering" and is often applied to complex R&D projects in industries such as aircraft manufacturing. In the 1990s, automotive R&D focused primarily on components. At the beginning of the 21st century, with the increase of vehicle functions and electronic devices, vehicle connectivity began to play an increasingly important role. Now and in the future, we must see the vehicle as part of the user ecosystem and seamlessly interconnect with systems other than the vehicle. To this end, experts in different fields articulate their needs and relationships at an early stage in vehicle development and ensure that systems and components are properly configured and designed, ultimately enabling all functions to be seamlessly integrated. With the gradual adoption of agile working methods, Volkswagen can shorten the vehicle development cycle by 25%. In the future, the vehicle project cycle will be shortened from 54 months to 40 months. In close cooperation with the production department, the technology and development department makes a significant contribution to the optimization of production and manufacturing, with the goal of reducing the production time per vehicle to 10 hours.

Targeted training to enhance employees' future skills

As the connected R&D processes in technology R&D become more focused on vehicle systems and functions, Volkswagen is also conducting targeted training for employees to better prepare them for the digital age. Hundreds of employees have received the training needed for new areas of work in technology research and development, and thousands more will be trained in the coming years. By 2030, around 4,000 employees will learn new skills to adapt to new jobs, while 6,000 to 8,000 employees will receive extensive training to enhance their professional capabilities. Training programs include short-term training aimed at upgrading specific professional functions, as well as large-scale retraining. The current maximum training lasts 180 days and offers employees the opportunity to work in new areas, such as skilled sheet metal workers who will have the opportunity to become experts in vehicle engineering commissioning. Through the training, Volkswagen lays a solid foundation for long-term attractive employment opportunities at the Wolfsburg plant.

The Sandkamp R&D Center gives the future of R&D its first form

Over the next five years, Volkswagen will invest around 800 million euros in the Sandkamp R&D center. The new state-of-the-art R&D center will further raise the standard for vehicle R&D, and its project center and integration center will accommodate more than 4,000 employees and will be Volkswagen's flagship project for the future. The project center will integrate design, conceptualization, user experience, product strategy, model range, technical project management and other functions, and also accommodate employees in the procurement, finance, production planning, quality assurance and sales departments.

The integration center will ensure efficient operation of cross-departmental approvals and decisions, and innovative test simulation facilities and open design collaboration areas will provide a first-class working environment for "systems engineering". With an agile development approach and an advanced working environment, the Technology & Development department will also play a pioneering role in Volkswagen's transformation process.

Future SSP electric platforms and a systematic focus on software will lay the foundation for future mobility

By accelerating the R&D process, systematically focusing on customer needs, and conducting targeted employee training, the Technology & Development Department not only lays the foundation for future mobility, but also creates the conditions for value-driven, fully connected, all-electric vehicles to integrate into the digital ecosystem through the development of trinity projects. To this end, Volkswagen is studying the platform that the Group will use in the future, namely the SSP (Scalable System Platform). The SSP platform for the era of electrification will fully integrate the advantages of MEB and PPE platforms and will be applied to Volkswagen's Trinity project for the first time in 2026. The SSP platform will be the cornerstone of all brand models – the Volkswagen Group will have more than 40 million vehicles built on this platform. At the same time, it will further consolidate Volkswagen's leading position in the field of vehicle platforms. Like the MEB platform, the SSP platform will also be open to other vendors. At the same time, the SSP platform can fully integrate vehicles into the ecosystem, creating the conditions for highly autonomous driving (L4 level) and new business models. Digital Lifecycle Management (DLCM) enables vehicles to remain updated even after delivery, and in the future users will have a car that can be updated in real time. As a production automaker, Volkswagen is committed to making such technologies widespread – a vision made possible by technologies such as remote over-the-air upgrades (OTAs) and on-demand functions (FoD).

With the launch of the ACCELERATOR strategy, Volkswagen will be able to respond in a timely and systematic manner to the far-reaching changes in the automotive industry. By 2026, the Volkswagen brand will invest around EUR 18 billion in areas of future trends such as electric vehicles, hybrids and digitalization. As part of the global electrification offensive, pure electric models will account for more than 70 percent of Volkswagen's sales in Europe and more than 50 percent in China and the United States. To achieve this, Volkswagen will introduce at least one new all-electric model every year, with the ultimate goal of electrifying all model lineups. Volkswagen plans to be fully carbon neutral by 2050. Volkswagen is accelerating its future-oriented other major issues: vehicle software integration and digital user experience will become core competencies. With a data-based business model, Volkswagen is working to attract new user groups and develop new revenue streams. By 2030, Volkswagen will further promote the spread of autonomous driving technology. Volkswagen is committed to consolidating its position as the "most attractive sustainable mobility brand".

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