This could mean increased cost saving down the line for consumers.
On top of producing its own batteries and electric motors, Volkswagen has announced that it will soon develop pulse inverters and thermal management systems to produce more aspects of its electric drive systems in-house. Volkswagen Group Technology will now take control of all of these aspects moving forward, creating profound cost-saving and logistics benefits for the company.
It's no secret that acquiring the components necessary for producing electric cars has been wildly difficult for manufacturers over the past few years. VW knows challenges well and has had to find ways around them like many others. The company recently hit half a million electric vehicles delivered across the world putting it a quarter of the way to Tesla's all-time deliveries. If it wants to become the top dog soon, there's no room for future setbacks like this again.
When automakers talk about electric vehicle production, we mainly hear about the production of batteries and motors. We don't need to explain to you that there's a lot more than just those two things that go into making an electric vehicle go, but with the inclusion of creating pulse inverters and thermal management systems, VW is much closer to controlling all aspects of its vehicle production.
The company is then able to scale and optimize all the components for one another, allowing much greater efficiency since the entire system was built from the ground up to work together. The pulse inverter has a significant impact on efficiency and performance while the thermal system has a big impact on range and fast-charging ability. VW says that once these proprietary components are implemented, up to 20% more efficiency is possible.
The other significant benefit of producing all of these components is then scalability. VW is such a large company that the larger upfront costs of producing all these components will eventually trickle down to cost savings felt by the consumer. This means future models like the current ID. 4 and upcoming ID.7 could become more competitively priced as time goes on.
“The Volkswagen Group and its brands stand for first-class products and technologies,” said Oliver Blume, Chair of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Group. “Thanks to the size and breadth of the Group, as well as our in-house expertise, we can leverage enormous economies of scale. This benefits our customers and makes our vehicles even better.”
Again, this will fall under VW Group Technology which will control the areas of batteries, charging, and electric components. Along with some subsidiaries, the high-tech portfolio comprises the “unified cell” which will be implemented in VW Group vehicles by 2025 with the goal of setting a new benchmark in the automotive industry for battery technology.
Keyword: VW Will Produce Its Electric Drive Systems In-House