Porsche shuns new VW Group platform for its own premium solution

Porsche executives said the brand will use its PPE architecture for future battery-powered cars rather than switch to parent Volkswagen Group’s newly announced SSP underpinnings.

Porsche has been developing PPE (Premium Platform Electric) with sister brand Audi since 2018. The architecture is focused on providing fast acceleration, longer range and shorter charging times.

The first model to use PPE will be the full-electric Porsche Macan SUV, which will go into production in the second half of next year. Audi's first PPE vehicle will be the Q6 e-tron SUV, a sister model to the Macan EV.

VW Group CEO Herbert Diess said on March 16 that the automaker will develop the highly flexible Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) by the middle of the decade. "By the end of this decade, we will be able to roll out SSP across all vehicle classes,” he said during the VW Group’s annual press conference last week.

SSP is intended to replace VW Group’s MEB platform that is currently being rolled out on full-electric cars such as the VW ID3 hatchback, VW ID4 SUV, Skoda Enyaq SUV and upcoming Audi Q4 e-tron compact EV. "SSP will eventually be the single backbone for the group" by 2035, Diess said.

Porsche intends to continue development work on PPE, the brand's head of production and logistics, Albrecht Reimold, told journalists during an online call March 15.

PPE will be used for the premium market and SSP will cover the mainstream segments for VW Group brands, Reimold said. "It would be too expensive to develop a single platform that covers all market segments including those [such as Porsche] that demand very high specifications," he said.

Porsche R&D boss Michael Steiner said the brand will incorporate software and technology elements from SSP.

"If you look at the platform in the classical way of a sheet-metal structure of steel and aluminum, [SSP] would not be the right for Porsche," Steiner told journalists during a separate online event. "Future platforms should not only be viewed as hardware and geometry, but also in terms of functions, software and intelligence and these aspects we will share in the future," he said.

Diess said during VW Group's March 16 annual press conference that SSP will run "Version 2.0" of the VW.OS operating system being developed in-house by the VW-owned Car.Software.Org. PPE will use an updated version of VW.OS called 1.2, he said.

Car.Software.Org. is also developing VW's technical foundations for autonomous driving, data-based business models and new mobility services, Diess said.

Audi and Porsche plan to sell 7 million cars based on the PPE platform by 2030, Audi CEO Markus Duesmann said at the brand's annual press conference on March 18.

PPE will underpin higher end cars while Audi is using VW Group's MEB platform on compact and midsize SUVs, he said.

Audi said in its recently published annual report that it was planning "various PPE-based model series" including SUV, Sportback, Avant (wagon) and crossover models, covering the segments "from the upper midsize class to the luxury class."

Sharing development costs with Porsche will reduce one-time expenses by 20 to 30 percent, the brand said.

PPE will also underpin future Bentley models starting in 2025. Audi last year took control of Bentley from Porsche in a reshuffle of responsibilies within VW Group.

Bentley has said it will go all-electric starting in 2030.

Porsche and Audi currently sell EVs based on an intermediate electric platform called the J1. The Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT use the platform.