Skoda is believed to be in advanced talks with Mahindra to co-develop a budget EV based on the MEB21G for VW and Skoda
According to a recent report that emerged on the internet, Volkswagen and Skoda are working full swing to develop a compact electric vehicle for the Indian market. It is essentially the ID.1 developed specifically for domestic cars and is internally codenamed MEB21G. For the global markets, VW is developing an affordable EV dubbed the ID.1 and it will be introduced in future.
Both Volkswagen and Skoda have endured good volumes in recent times courtesy of their latest models such as the Skoda Kushaq, Skoda Slavia, VW Taigun and VW Virtus and all of them are based on the India-specific MQB A0 IN platform with heavy localisation. Skoda will take charge of the EV project, just as it did with the India 2.0 project which spawned the aforementioned models.
The Czech Republican auto major is said to be confident of developing a low-cost zero-emission vehicle for India with high local content from the get go. If the MEB21G project gets the nod, main components such as the electric motor, battery pack, and BMS will reportedly be localised but the critical battery cells might be imported from Germany.
Skoda and Volkswagen will launch the MEB21G architecture based models for a price tag of well under Rs. 20 lakh. To achieve such an ambitious task, the brands could sacrifice on the features offered too as the report noted that all functions will be “housed in and operated from the digital instrument cluster” and there won’t be an infotainment system.
The growing technologies like OTA updates will help lower the production costs and services can be provided on demand and subscription wise based on the requirements. While no concrete decision has been made to bring the MEB21G platform to India yet, Volkswagen Group is evaluating options to see if proper business can be conducted feasibly.
Skoda is believed to be in advanced talks with Mahindra to co-develop a budget EV based on the MEB21G for VW and Skoda. It makes sense considering that they are already involved in a partnership to supply EV components.