The premise of platform sharing is simple – car companies will share bits in order to lower costs.
It could happen between two companies under the same overarching umbrella (think the VW Group or Renault-Nissan Alliance), or between different brands that need to pool costs and resources to achieve a particular outcome (such as the van collaborations between Peugeot, Citroen, Renault and Mercedes-Benz).
Big car companies are talking more and more about this means of saving cash, with the most notable being the Volkswagen Group and its near-dozen automotive brands. If you didn’t know, the Volkswagen Golf, Audi A3 and Skoda Octavia are essentially fraternal twins – a product of the much lauded MQB underpinnings which allows the German giant to build a bunch of cars – from the next Polo city runabout to the upcoming Passat large car – from varied versions of the same architectural bits.
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