Volkswagen reveals interesting details about its future SSP electric platform

The German manufacturer continues to take steps forward in the development of its future modular platform for electric models, known by its English acronym SSP –Scalable Systems Platform-. According to sources close to the company who have had access to German media, the company has already completed the architecture definition phase, thereby establishing the technical foundations for the next generations of the brand’s electric models.

This important achievement for the company means that the essential elements of the group’s promising future electric vehicle platform have already been established.

As its name suggests, the new SSP platform from Volkswagen will stand out for its scalability. It is expected to be versatile enough to cover a wide variety of vehicle types, from high-volume models to the most premium ones. Internal company sources even speak of the possibility of eight new platforms derived from the SSP.

This is only the beginning

The road Volkswagen must travel before the first production models based on the SSP platform reach the market will, however, still be quite long. The next step will be negotiating contracts with suppliers, both internal and external. The Kassel components plant will be responsible for manufacturing key parts of the propulsion systems, while other elements, including the motors, will be acquired from external partners. These agreements are expected to be finalised by spring 2026, once the production plans for specific models and platform variants are firmed up.

When Volkswagen announced the start of development of the new SSP platform in July 2021, under the leadership of Herbert Diess, the company already highlighted some of its future features, such as the use of a unit cell, its 800-volt architecture and its great flexibility. Now, the company has gone a step further, defining the scope of the platform and its broad scalability.

Not everything is good news for Volkswagen, however. We must not forget the major delay accumulated in its development. Initially, Volkswagen intended to launch its first electric model based on the SSP platform in 2026. Something we now know will almost certainly not happen. The German manufacturer has been forced to readjust its timelines, and everything points to the SSP platform not becoming a reality until the end of this decade.

Volkswagen does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past

Right now the group’s priority, under the leadership of Oliver Blume, is nothing other than avoiding further delays. In a recent internal meeting with senior company executives, Blume urged them to strictly comply with the specifications already set, making it very clear that the company can no longer afford errors in the development of this platform.

This warning responds to the problems the company has faced with its current platforms, both the MEB and the PPE, which suffered software failures and questioned design decisions.

With the new SSP platform, Volkswagen seeks to take advantage of economies of scale through the use of shared components, while reducing its complexity to cut costs by up to 20 percent compared with the MEB and PPE platforms. Although it is not yet clear which will be the first vehicle of the brand to debut the SSP platform, some speculation suggests that it could be the ninth generation of the Golf, which will probably be electric. Other possibilities remain open too, such as an electric T-Roc or a successor to the Audi A3.