Those who make a living working in hazardous environments will recognize PPE as the acronym for Personal Protective Equipment. SEO and digital advertising gurus might give this a quick glance and mistake it for some kind of new pay-per-click arrangement. In this instance, however, PPE stands for Premium Platform Electric – a new all-electric vehicle architecture that Audi and Porsche will develop together.
Being under the same Volkswagen umbrella, such a partnership between the manufacturers isn’t exactly revolutionary, but it will have benefits. Porsche Executive Board Chairman Oliver Blume said going solo on such an undertaking would have cost the company “around 30 percent higher.” His counterpart at Audi, Rupert Stadler, called the joint effort “unprecedented in the automotive industry” and said it was a key part of Audi’s future.
Porsche electric news:
Obviously there’s some pomp and circumstance going on here, but whether people are ready for it or not, the automotive future is an electric one. That may not be an easy transition to make when you realize that over a century of internal combustion engineering and design is baked into the current manufacturing mindset. Getting the most from electric vehicles – whether they use batteries or hydrogen fuel cells – likely means completely rethinking the entire process.
Gallery: Audi E-Tron Sportback concept
That seems to be a primary goal with the Porsche/Audi PPE project. Whereas current electric offerings from automakers generally involve dropping batteries motors into cars originally designed for internal combustion engines, PPE will consider everything from wheelbase to packaging and spaciousness to find all advantages of a purely electric vehicle. Furthermore, the project will seek to make the platform scalable to a range of models, including low-floor cars and high-floor SUVs. Once developed, the architecture would allow both automakers to bring new EVs to market much quicker.
Audi electric news:
The work on this new platform will take place in both Ingolstadt – home to Audi’s largest production facility, and in Weissach – the location for Porsche’s development center. The first all-new models using the PPE architecture are expected to arrive in late 2021. In the near-term, Audi’s E-Tron and the Porsche Mission E will launch as the first purely electric models from both brands.
Source: Audi
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Gallery: Porsche Mission E: Everything We Know
Porsche and Audi developing shared architecture for electric cars
The joint electric offensive by Porsche and Audi was launched ten months ago. Now the premium manufacturers are deepening their development partnership and achieving concrete results. The goal of the cooperation, which will create a pioneering architecture called the Premium Platform Electric (PPE), is to shape the mobility of tomorrow together and to put future electric vehicles on the market more quickly.
By making effective joint use of their development capacities, the two high-tech brands are creating a larger scope for electrification, digitalization and autonomous driving, and for further development of highly efficient conventional drive systems. “If we had to tackle the challenges ahead on our own, the costs would be around 30 percent higher,” said Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Executive Board of Porsche AG. Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, added: “The PPE is a key piece of the future for us. Thanks to this collaboration, which is unprecedented in the automotive industry, the characteristics, zero emissions and profitability all add up to an ideal combination. So in this case, 1+1 equals 3.”
Project facilities were established in Ingolstadt and Weissach for the joint undertaking, which is expected to result in three model families. Audi is leading two of the three planned vehicle projects, each of which includes models from both companies, and Porsche is leading the remaining project. About 550 Audi developers and 300 from Porsche are currently working on the project – and more are being assigned to the teams. Each of them spends two days a week in attendance at the partner company’s site.
The new electric architecture is enabling Audi and Porsche to optimally exploit the advantages of the purely electric vehicle – including the package, wheelbase and spaciousness, to name a few examples. What’s more, the architectures are so variable that they can be used for high-floor and low-floor vehicles (SUVs and sedans, respectively). Plans call for the first models based on the PPE to appear in late 2021. Prior to that, in 2018 and 2019, the e-tron and Mission E production models will be the first electric models launched by the two premium brands.
Audi’s product portfolios of the future will be highly diversified with the MEB (modular electrification platform), which was cost-effectively developed by Volkswagen, the PPE, two further developed conventional architectures, and ideas for sporty models. The company’s transformation, which is well underway, is ensuring that its capacities and financial resources are allocated for the right purposes.
“Our financial and technical strengths give us a substantial lead over our competitors,” said a confident Rupert Stadler. “This collaboration is progressing extremely well, and both companies see the need to maintain clearly differentiated, brand-specific product characteristics as the highest priority. More than ever before, Audi is taking advantage of the opportunities to create an unmistakable look in the areas of design, vehicle interiors and user interface.”