In the course of the Tech Day 2023 in Barcelona, the Volkswagen Group Know-how offered an outlook of upcoming electrical automobile improvements within the areas of batteries, charging and digital parts. The main target was on the electrical drive system of the longer term. For this objective, Volkswagen is caring for all of the central parts itself and, along with batteries and electrical motors, is now growing pulse inverters and thermal administration programs internally.
The Volkswagen drive system coming from one supply presents important effectivity and value benefits: as much as 20 p.c extra effectivity is feasible by means of the optimum mixture of particular person parts alone.
Oliver Blume, Chair of the Board of Administration of the Volkswagen Group, stated: “The Volkswagen Group and its manufacturers stand for first-class merchandise and applied sciences. Due to the scale and breadth of the Group, in addition to our in-house experience, we are able to leverage monumental economies of scale. This advantages our prospects and makes our automobiles even higher.”
“Designed by Volkswagen”: Pulse inverters and thermal administration programs
The heart beat inverter is the mind of the electrical drive practice and is basically answerable for effectivity and efficiency. For the primary pulse inverter to be “designed by Volkswagen”, the builders of those core parts redesigned the {hardware} and software program from the bottom up. Due to the modular toolkit precept, this may be applied in every thing from entry-level engines to sports activities automobiles with an output of over 500 kW and extra in future. The expertise is at present being developed for collection manufacturing maturity and might already be used with the following MEB era.
In the case of thermal administration programs, Volkswagen is engaged on completely new options. Whereas immediately numerous particular person modules and lengthy hose connections are used, in future these can be changed with an especially compact, built-in thermal module. This may management your complete air con, together with for the high-voltage battery, and thus could have a significant affect on the automobile’s vary and fast-charging functionality. The brand new all-in-one module can also be considerably lighter, extra sturdy and extra environment friendly than present programs.
Along with effectivity, the primary focus of the event of all central electrical drive parts is scalability – as a result of excessive economies of scale scale back prices.
Group Know-how: The expertise powerhouse of the Group
Volkswagen Group Know-how bundles Group-wide actions within the areas of batteries, charging and electrical parts and helps the and helps the manufacturers as a group-wide expertise provider. The subsidiaries PowerCo (batteries) and Elli (charging and power) are additionally concerned right here.
Amongst different issues, the high-tech portfolio includes the unified cell, which can be utilised in all Volkswagen Group automobiles as of 2025 and can set a brand new benchmark by way of battery expertise. The division additionally consists of the Platform Enterprise, which covers cooperation with exterior companions like Ford and Mahindra. All over the world, Volkswagen Group Know-how employs round 70,000 individuals.
