[SMM Analysis] Volkswagen ID.4 Crozz launch, MEB platform becomes the key to Volkswagen's transformation?

SMM1 March 29: recently, FAW-Volkswagen launched its first pure electric SUV--ID.4 CROZZ, which is positioned as a compact SUV, model with a total of 5 models, with a subsidized price of 19.99-279900 yuan. It is reported that the model, which uses the MEB module developed by Volkswagen specifically for electric vehicles, will carry the Ningde era 811 battery and is expected to last between the 400--550km. The pre-sale of ID.4 CROZZ indicates that Volkswagen ID.4 family cars have officially entered China's new energy vehicle market, while Volkswagen's heavily invested MEB platform has once again entered the public eye.

As we all know, FAW-Volkswagen, which is owned by Volkswagen Group, and SAIC-Volkswagen used to win the title of passenger car sales in the domestic market, and they are the well-deserved overlord in the field of fuel vehicles. However, in the field of new energy, Volkswagen brands are still lack of heavyweight products, and the overall competitiveness of its new energy models is still weak. Due to the imbalance between the sales of new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles, they are facing great pressure on double points and carbon emissions in both Chinese and European markets. if they fail to meet the standards, they may face huge fines or even a ban on the sale of fuel vehicles. According to the data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on April 10, 2020, FAW-Volkswagen scored-549439 points in 2019 to "surpass" the country's 119 auto companies, while SAIC-Volkswagen's performance was not very satisfactory. Therefore, for the current Volkswagen, there is an urgent need for a popular model in its new energy landscape to help it complete the electrification transformation and ease the pressure of two-line integration, and the MEB platform is a key part of Volkswagen's strategy.

MEB platform (Modular Electrification Toolkit), is the modular platform for electric vehicles. It is an electric vehicle platform that Volkswagen has made painstaking efforts to build in recent years. Previously, most of Volkswagen's PHEV or electric vehicles are based on the MQB platform, that is, the traditional fuel vehicle platform is developed in reverse, and the platform is electrified by adding components such as batteries and motors, but because its chassis pattern has not changed greatly, limited by its own pattern, its shortcomings such as less battery layout space, short wheelbase and more redundant space have been exposed. MEB is an automobile platform specially developed based on electric vehicles, which is specially optimized for the above problems, such as battery layout design, wheelbase, battery safety and so on, such as the complete axle module embedded in the battery is far away from the traditional system module, which makes it more in line with the characteristics of electric vehicles, but also has the characteristics of versatility and expandability.

We believe that Volkswagen's MEB platform has the following advantages:

Considering the high performance-to-price ratio of ID.4, and at the same time, there is no popular foreign SUV product in the range of 15-300000 in the new energy vehicle market, at the same time, compared with the price of Model Y exceeding 300000, the product itself still has greater competitiveness. According to the current data on Volkswagen's official website, it is expected that Volkswagen MEB electric vehicles will cover all classes of models in 2022, rapidly improve its new energy vehicle product matrix and enhance its product diversity in the new energy field. At the same time, with the high expansibility and versatility of its platform, the marginal R & D cost of the model is greatly reduced, and the domestic market is quickly hit at a very cost-effective price. The domestic new energy vehicle market may really open the era of pure electricity of Volkswagen.