At one time, a vehicle platform was precisely that. Almost all cars had a frame and chassis, with the body bolted to it. If a platform was “shared,” it meant two cars used the same frame, but with differently-styled bodies attached.
Today, many automakers’ “platforms” are engineering tools used for the vehicle’s basic design. It describes the architecture of the vehicle’s underpinnings: the chassis, drivetrain, steering, and suspension. When designs within the platform can be shared between vehicles – a “modular” platform – it saves automakers considerable time and money when creating new vehicles.
Whereas putting the same frame under numerous vehicles meant they all had to be the same size, a modular or flexible platform can be made longer or shorter, or wider or narrower, depending on what’s being built.
It’s not the same as so-called “badge engineering,” where an automaker takes a vehicle and adds different trim and styling cues to create another one – think of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, for example. Modular platforms are just a starting point for each vehicle’s design and engineering.
In addition to the cost savings of not having to design each new vehicle’s underpinnings from scratch, the models that share the platform can also share many of its components. This allows automakers to design and build these parts in greater volumes, spreading out the overhead costs for a lower cost per unit. It can also reduce the number of different parts that automakers and dealers have to stock, since one part can be used on several different models.
Different vehicles with shared platforms can also potentially be built on the same assembly lines, further reducing the cost and space needed to build them. All of these are very important considerations, since the cost of designing, engineering, testing, and building just the first vehicles off the line can run into billions of dollars.
Modular platforms are becoming even more important as automakers explore alternative power sources. If a platform can be shared by vehicles with different technologies – such as hybrid, electric, or fuel cell – it can bring down the cost of designing these lower-volume vehicles, since automakers don’t have to engineer a new one for each type.
How it’s done can depend on the automaker. The Volkswagen Group, for example, has developed a platform, MEB (the name translates into modular electric drive matrix) that’s dedicated to battery-powered vehicles of various sizes. It differs from the automaker’s MQB platform that underpins models like the Volkswagen Golf and Audi TT, and the MLB for vehicles such as the Porsche Cayenne. Volkswagen plans to offer the MEB to other automakers, offsetting its cost through economy of scale, while those who pay for the technology will be getting it for less than if they had to design their own platforms in-house.
Taking a different approach, Subaru developed its modular Global Platform to accommodate gasoline, hybrid, and full-electric drivetrains, so it can use the same architecture for all of its future vehicles. The 2017 Impreza was the first built on it, along with the 2018 Crosstrek, while the upcoming 2020 Outback is the latest example.
One of the key elements to modular platforms is that they can be adapted to new designs and technologies in the future – giving them a longer lifespan that, again, helps to spread the huge cost of platform development. With the Volkswagen MEB, its scalable architecture can be adapted to batteries of different sizes, allowing the company to offer shorter- or longer-range vehicles. It can also be tweaked to accommodate new sizes or types of batteries as that technology evolves.
While modular platforms have their advantages, there are challenges in designing them. The engineers want to cover as wide a range of vehicles as possible with a single platform, but there are limits to how far they can be stretched. Automakers that make a very diverse variety of vehicles will have to use more than one, although there are still benefits – Ford, for example, went from building 30 different platforms to 9, and will further whittle that down to just 5 within the next few years. Those 5 will cover everything from full-size trucks and commercial vans to compact sport utilities and electric vehicles.
Another challenge is in ensuring that each vehicle has its own characteristics, so that they don’t all feel like copies of each other. Such factors as steering feel, handling characteristics, suspension and weight distribution have to be adjusted and tuned for each vehicle. It’s especially important when the vehicles are in completely different categories, such as a platform that underpins both an economy car and a sports sedan, or does double duty for a mainstream model and a luxury one.
On global vehicles, which can be sold in several markets, the platform has to be designed so the vehicle can be built to comply with regulations in each country. Automakers also have to be on top of quality control: if huge numbers of vehicles share common components, any that have issues could result in equally large numbers of recalls. Still, the benefits of modular architecture outweigh the challenges, and it’s here to stay.
