All in three years
Volkswagen believes, among other things, that it can arm itself against increasing Chinese competition with a shorter development time. The Volkswagen ID2 is the first car that is developed faster than the manufacturer is used to.
During the IAA in Munich, the German car industry extensively discussed the ‘threat’ from China. There are also quite a few Chinese manufacturers on the exhibition floor there, more than ever before. Volkswagen has the opposite Coach a striking response. This aims, among other things, to make the fast-working Chinese more resilient through a shorter development time. Technical CEO Kai Grunitz explains that Volkswagen will also work faster. “We have concrete ideas for this and we see from the Chinese competition that it is possible.”
In concrete terms, this means that the development time of a model (from initial sketches to market introduction) is shortened from an average of 4.5 years to three years. The Volkswagen ID2 is the first car to be developed in that time frame. According to Grunitz, working faster obviously also entails risks and that is something people are very careful about in Germany, of all places. “But in every business there are risks. The Chinese competition starts (to develop a car, ed.) and adapts easily when something comes up. We have to do that in Germany too. It is a different approach, but it is really possible.”
The biggest challenge is that, despite the even shorter development time, there is no repeat of the problematic introductions that we previously saw at Volkswagen. Grunitz acknowledges this candidly: “We don’t want to put cars on the road that have thousands of faults, as you have seen with the Golf 8 and the ID3. That is the biggest challenge.”
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl