Audi Officially Collaborates With A Company From China As A Supplier Of EV Platforms

Audi Q4 e-tron. (Doc. Audi AG)

JAKARTA - Audi and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) on Thursday, July 20, have agreed to cooperate in the development of electric vehicles in a move aimed at strengthening their respective positions in the Chinese car market.

In a deal made by the two companies, Audi has plans to secure EV platforms from the IM Motors brand, joint venture company SAIC Motor and Chinese technology company Zhangjiang Hi-Tech and Alibaba Group, for some of its newest models.

This was done by Audi as an alternative in presenting several EV models while waiting for the arrival of Volkswagen Group's newest platform, namely the Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) which was delayed until 2026.

Representatives from SAIC said that the company's choice as the distribution of the platform for Audi was a sign that China's automotive market was in a major transformation in history.

"Therefore, we will work together on a strategic approach that guarantees our success in the future," said a SAIC representative quoted from Autocar, Thursday, July 20.

Previously, it was reported that Audi's growth in developing electric cars was hampered due to the development of Volkswagen Group's Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) architecture experiencing delays due to obstacles in the development of E3 2.0 software which is the core component of SSP, which offers level three autonomous driving technology.

As a result of the constrained development of the SSP architecture, the Trinity project from Volkswagen Group must also be delayed until 2029 or 2030. Previously, the Trinity model would be introduced to the public in 2026 as the first model to use the SSP platform.

To overcome this delay, Audi decided to use the architecture developed by SAIC and has been used on the IM L7 sedan and IM LS7 SUV models.

Currently, Audi is selling the Q4 e-tron and Q5 e-tron models based on the MEB platform on the Chinese market, and both models are produced locally at the Audi plant in Anting, China.

In addition, Audi is also working with its strategic partner, FAW, to build an electric car factory in China that will produce models with the Premium Platform Electric (PPE) architecture starting at the end of 2024. PPE will be used for the Audi A6 e-tron and Q6 e-tron models.