Volkswagen is considering extending the software it uses in Chinese models to mainstream Volkswagen brand cars sold in Europe, according to Manager Magazin, which cited people familiar with the matter. The move would gradually sideline Rivian, the American partner Volkswagen has spent USD 5.8 billion bringing into its software stack.
The architecture in question is the China Electronic Architecture developed with XPeng for the Chinese market. According to the report it could become the base for future models across Volkswagen, Skoda and Cupra, the group’s three core volume brands, covering roughly three quarters of their next-generation line-ups. All three are trying to accelerate electric vehicle launches in Europe.
Thomas Schaefer, who heads the Volkswagen passenger car brand, was expected to present the proposal to management on 27 October. Volkswagen Group declined to comment on the report.
A split the group built deliberately
Until now Volkswagen has kept software development for China separate from the rest of the world. Chinese models use the architecture co-developed with XPeng. Software for Western markets is developed with Rivian, a partnership that sits at the centre of chief executive Oliver Blume’s software strategy and has absorbed USD 5.8 billion of investment.
The group has struggled to keep pace in software regardless. Its brand and model architecture is unusually complex, spanning volume brands and premium marques including Audi and Porsche, which makes scaling a single software platform difficult. Cariad, the group’s software subsidiary, has run into the same problem repeatedly.
What it means for Rivian
If the plan is approved, the most consequential effect is not in Wolfsburg but in Irvine, California. A platform partnership justified as the route to software competence across the group would be reduced to a regional role in one market, while the architecture doing the volume work in Europe would be the one built with a Chinese partner.
For European suppliers and regulators the signal is equally direct. The electronic architecture of a European volume car is becoming a Chinese-designed component, at a moment when Brussels is drafting local-content rules for exactly this part of the vehicle.
Volkswagen has one advantage most rivals do not: it already owns the Chinese engineering. The cost of that advantage is that the European car becomes, in software terms, a derivative.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Gasgoo report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://auto.gasgoo.com/news/202610/27I70475999C109.shtml.