Has Volkswagen discovered the Holy Grail of carmakers
Transcript of Has Volkswagen discovered the Holy Grail of carmakers
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Ulrich Hackenberg isn't yet a household name but if Volkswagen's $70
billion bet on his big idea pays off, he may join the likes of Henry Ford,
Alfred Sloan and Taiichi Ohno in the canon of auto industry
pioneers.Since the heyday of Henry Ford and his Model T, the world's
automakers have considered the "global car" to be their Holy Grail - the
same basic design that can be built, in subtle variations, and sold in
different markets.
Take that fundamental concept, stretch it across many different vehicle
types, sizes and brands, then build them by the millions, and you begin
to sense the enormity of Volkswagen's rapidly evolving "mega-platform"
strategy and its potential impact on competitors around the globe.
Has Volkswagen discovered the Holy Grail of carmakers?
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Auto engineer Hackenberg nurtured this bright idea for three decades,
after early pitches to auto executives were largely ignored, until
somebody finally bought it wholesale. The man who bit was Volkswagen
Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn.Hackenberg's fundamental
rethink of vehicle platforms, the industrial Lego from which cars are
designed and made, is helping power the German company to the top ofthe global sales charts several years ahead of its 2018 target. It could
also make VW one of the most profitable carmakers in the world.
The strategy is not without risk. It could, for instance, expose
Volkswagen to the threat of a massive global recall if a single part, used
in millions of cars, fails.
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But rivals have taken note of the power behind its move. Volkswagen'smodular platforms are being benchmarked by most of the world's top
automakers, including Toyota Motor Corp and Ford Motor Co (NYS:F),
according to company executives."We'd be crazy not to," said a senior
Ford official, requesting anonymity because of the proprietary nature of
the subject.VW's work on its largest mega-platform, known internally as MQB,
began in earnest in 2007 and is being implemented over the next four
years at a cost of nearly $70 billion, estimates Morgan Stanley. The
potential payoff is compelling: Projected annual gross savings by 2019 of
$19 billion, according to the bank, with gross margins approaching 10
percent.
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The automaker is expected to announce a record profit for 2012 of more
than $30 billion later this month (February 22), according to Bernstein
Research, whose senior analyst, Max Warburton, observes: "VW looks
to have unstoppable momentum - in China, the U.S., Europe and most of
the rest of the world."That momentum has been building for some time,
even before the initial deployment last year of Hackenberg's brainchild.Industry-leading levels of commonality - the proportion of parts that can
be shared among different models - are nothing new to VW. At a
gathering in Japan five years ago, Renault and Nissan executives lifted
the hoods on several VW Group vehicles side by side - including models
from Skoda, Seat and Audi brands - and saw trouble.
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"They had the same engines, the same clutches, the same ventilation -
all identical parts," says an executive who attended the presentation. "It
was a level of commonality that didn't exist at Renault-Nissan."Late in
2011, as the outlook darkened for French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen,
its board was given a similar demonstration, and a similar shock, at the
company's high-security research center in Velizy, southwest of Paris.Technicians took apart the front ends of two different VW cars and
swapped most of their components.
"They were a little dumbstruck by the realization that there was a whole
new world out there - and their development was 10 years behind,"
recalls one participant.
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SIX-YEAR GESTATION
After a six-year gestation, VW has just begun to implement its
sophisticated and highly flexible platform with the deceptively simple
label MQB, a German acronym for "modular transverse matrix."
Virtually all of the group's small and medium front-wheel-drive familymodels, including the latest generations of the VW Golf and Audi A3, are
being designed around MQB as their base.The new platform features a
far greater degree of plug-and-play modularity, flexibility and parts
commonality than at Toyota, General Motors Co, Ford and other
competitors
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MQB "could be the single most important automotive initiative of the
past 25 years," says Michael Robinet, managing director of IHS
Consulting in Northville, Michigan. "It really changes the game."With the
new mega-platform strategy supporting its 12 brands, from spartan
Skoda to Audi, Porsche and Lamborghini, VW is poised to snatch the
global sales crown from Toyota as early as next year, according to
investment bank Morgan Stanley.
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VW envisions enormous leverage from MQB. The plan is to boost global
sales to 10 million or more, with roughly two out of every three cars -
some 40-plus models totaling 6.3 million sales a year - built on some
variation of the MQB platform, according to U.S. research firm IHS
Automotive.None of VW's competitors has the diversity of brands, thebreadth of technology, the sweeping geographic footprint or the deep
pockets necessary to support and take advantage of such a wide-
reaching initiative as MQB.
Even Toyota, the current global sales leader, is playing catch-up with its
German rival.
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"There's no doubt we have fallen behind," says a senior Toyota
executive who declined to be named because of the sensitive nature of
the subject. "We have not even begun to make the fundamental
structural changes that VW has" in designing and applying flexiblevehicle platforms.The sense from competitors and auto analysts is that
VW's rollout of MQB is likely to be as influential as such earlier
innovations as Ford's adaptation of standardized parts, GM's "ladder" of
brands and Toyota's streamlined production system.
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WATERSHED EVENT
VW's suppliers see MQB as a watershed event, a break with a past when
really big vehicle platforms might have yielded orders for as many as 5
million or 6 million identical components over their typical six- to seven-
year life cycle.Now, with the implementation of MQB, "they're being
asked for quotes on 35 million parts," says a senior European industry
executive.
More importantly, the modularity enables VW to design, engineer and
build a wide variety of vehicle size and shapes - from a subcompact Polo
hatchback to a full-size, seven-passenger crossover that's due in the
United States in 2015.
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The flexibility of the MQB system also allows VW to create more cars
that are more tailored for specific markets at a lower cost, and it doesn'thave to sell so many units to break even, according to Morgan Stanley
analyst Stuart Pearson.MQB isn't the only weapon in Hackenberg's
arsenal.
Larger Audi, VW and Porsche models with longitudinal engines -
mounted in a north-south configuration - will use a similar set ofcomponents dubbed MLB that already underpins a number of Audi
vehicles.
And many of the group's ultra-luxury and performance brands will
employ a third component set called MSB, designed for premium rear-
and all-wheel-drive vehicles such as the Porsche 911, the BentleyContinental and the Lamborghini Gallardo.
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Each of the three modular component sets will come in different
variations that will enable enormous flexibility in terms of product
design, while accommodating a wide range of powertrain options, from
gas and diesel engines to electric motors and batteries."Modular
platforms have grown beyond the technology (alone) to become amanagement tool which helps support the brands' development. The
toolkits help the brands to preserve their character and sharpen their
individuality," said Hackenberg, now development chief for the
Volkswagen brand.
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STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
The modular toolkits seem like the ideal complement to VW's other
strengths, not the least of which is the company's sheer size: Group
revenue this year is projected by Bernstein Research to top $275
billion.But the huge volumes planned for the MQB derivatives alonecould also expose the group to the same sort of mass recalls of millions
of cars experienced in recent years by Japanese rival Toyota. If a single
part has a problem, and that part is in many different models, a recall
affects many more vehicles.
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Analysts, including Morgan Stanley's Pearson and Frankfurt-based
Metzler Bank analyst Juergen Pieper, also express concern about VW's
growing reliance on emerging markets, notably China, for future
growth.The company was an early investor in China and the only
European automaker to form joint ventures with that country's top two
manufacturers, FAW Group and Shanghai Auto.
Now, China accounts for 30 percent of VW's global sales. The German
group operates 10 assembly/component factories in China and plans to
pump another $13 billion with its JV partners over the next three years
into plants, equipment and models.
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Excess exposure to a single market such as China contradicts VW's
philosophy of spreading growth evenly and potentially makes it
vulnerable to negative market developments and possible government
interference, says Pieper.To hedge its potential emerging-markets
exposure, VW also has overhauled its loss-making North American
operations - an estimated $4-billion investment, according to Morgan
Stanley, that could more than double U.S. sales by 2018 to 1.3 million.
Even then, it would remain a mid-level player in the U.S. market
dominated by GM and Ford, which sell nearly 5 million vehicles a year
between them.
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VW is supporting its recent growth spurt with additional production capacity,
including a new Audi assembly plant in Mexico, expansion of VW's existingfacility in Puebla and a potential increase at the new Chattanooga plant in
Tennessee. The latter two plants will be updated to accommodate new models
that use the MQB platform - the latest Golf in Puebla and the big crossover in
Chattanooga, according to VW executives.
Top managers are scanning other overseas markets where the company lackslocal production facilities, including Africa, much of Latin America and most of
the ASEAN region, where VW's modest presence is dwarfed by that of market
leader Toyota.
VW is in the process of boosting global capacity, including the investments in
China and the United States, to nearly 12 million by 2015, from 8.6 million in
2010, according to Morgan Stanley.
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CHANGING OF THE GUARD
The full rollout of MQB may not be accomplished until the end of the decade,
estimates Pearson. By then, the chief stewards of VW's corporate strategy -
CEO Winterkorn and Chairman Ferdinand Piech - may be retired and the next
generation of management moved into the top slots.The Austrian-born Piech,
75, is a third-generation auto executive. A mechanical engineer by training, heis the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, the legendary Austrian designer of the
original VW Beetle.
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VW's supervisory board has yet to clearly anoint potential heirs to Piech and
Winterkorn, 65, and it won't be easy, particularly since much of the power has
been closely held by the two patriarchs since Winterkorn became CEO in
2007.As for the company's strategic vision after Piech steps down, Morgan
Stanley's Pearson says: "His legacy is (building) the world's largest and most
successful auto company. I don't think the strategy will change any time soon."