Backed by 500-person in-house team, volkswagen cea platform enters pre-delivery status

"Every day during lunch break, we turn off the lights and put on eye masks to take a nap, and then continue coding in the afternoon."

As a programmer, Yuan Min and his colleagues' lunch break pattern is not much different from that of software engineers at technology companies in China.

However, Yuan Min and others are not from Chinese technology companies, but rather from the CARIAD China software development team located in Hefei.

As the software company under Volkswagen Group China (hereinafter referred to as Volkswagen China), CARIAD China is the core team for Volkswagen's software development in China.

In particular, since April 2024, when Volkswagen China and XPeng Motors announced the joint development of a new electronic and electrical architecture CEA platform, CARIAD China has been primarily responsible for the self-developed software part.

Yeeo Automotive has exclusively learned that currently, as the brain and central nervous system of Volkswagen's next-generation models in China:

The brand-new CEA platform has entered the pre-delivery mode, and CARIAD China is expected to complete the full mass production and delivery of the CEA platform within 2025.

The platform is reported to be based on regional control and a quasi-central computing electronic and electrical architecture, capable of supporting remote OTA upgrades. Features such as assisted driving will also be integrated into the vehicle and can be continuously updated and expanded.

Starting from 2025, the CEA platform is expected to be applied to all electric vehicles of the Volkswagen brand produced in China, initially covering the newly developed local electric vehicle platform—CMP, as well as four entry-level electric vehicles built on this platform. In the future, the CEA platform will also be equipped in PHEV plug-in hybrid models and fuel models produced by the Volkswagen brand in China.

"The progress is faster than expected."

In fact, as early as during the Shanghai Auto Show in April this year, Thomas Ulbrich, Chief Technology Officer of Volkswagen China and CEO of Volkswagen China Technology Company (VCTC), revealed that the development speed of the CEA platform had already exceeded the expectations of Volkswagen's senior management.

From MEB to SSP, several of Volkswagen's vehicle platforms have been forced to delay due to software issues, disrupting the rhythm of new car releases.

Therefore, as the first quasi-central electronic and electrical architecture of the Volkswagen Group worldwide, the on-time delivery of the CEA is considered a milestone for the entire Volkswagen Group.

More importantly, the CEA architecture research and development is led by the CARIAD China team under the leadership of Han Sanchu, which is unprecedented within the Volkswagen Group.

Self-developed All-Chinese Team:500 people scale, 11 million lines of code

"The team responsible for CEA software development at CARIAD China consists of about 500 people, most of whom are newly recruited employees by General Manager Han, along with some former Volkswagen employees who previously received training at XPeng."

Including Yuan Min, several employees have confirmed to Yiou Auto a particular number: since the recruitment and formation of a new software team started at the end of 2024, over the past 10 months, the R&D team writing software code for CEA has maintained around 500 people. "At most, it will not exceed 550 people, and it mainly consists of Chinese software engineers."

In comparison, when Han Sanchu served as the Chief Software Architect at Changan Automobile, he also led a team that successfully developed Changan's first "software-defined vehicle" SDA platform architecture, with a team size of 2,000 people.

With just a quarter of Changan's scale, the development of CEA can be completed, which undoubtedly requires the cooperation and support of the Xiaopeng team.

As a product of the cooperation between Volkswagen and XPeng, Volkswagen China dispatched more than 100 employees to XPeng for collective training.

After completing their advanced training, these Volkswagen employees will be dispersed across various departments within Volkswagen's R&D system, including the hardware section overseen by VCTC and the software department led by CARIAD China.

In the collaboration between Volkswagen and XPeng, XPeng was "completely open, providing one-on-one, hands-on teaching, allowing Volkswagen's R&D personnel to see how the XPeng team writes code."

According to information obtained by Yiou Auto, the cooperation between Volkswagen and XPeng primarily involves learning, with Volkswagen China employees going to XPeng to learn the development logic of the underlying architecture.

"I feel like being in school, where the teacher can teach you knowledge, but won't do your homework for you, let alone take the exam on your behalf." A public figure told Yiou Auto that the final assessment authority does not rest with Volkswagen. Only by passing Xpeng's assessment can it be considered as "graduating." From mid-July 2024, when the first batch of Volkswagen employees started their tenure at Xpeng, until February this year, when all Volkswagen employees returned, the duration of Volkswagen employees' training at Xpeng was only eight months.

"Because the development schedule of CEA is very tight, Mr. Han occasionally urges us to hurry back," recalled a Volkswagen employee.

The progress of CEA's development demonstrates the efficiency of the cooperation between both parties, and during this process, the growth of Volkswagen's employees has also impressed the XPeng side. It was reported by the media that some Volkswagen employees even began to critique XPeng's code during their further education.

This story largely breaks the stereotype held by outsiders regarding the programming ability of Volkswagen's Chinese employees.

"Actually, there was a similar story after Mr. Han arrived," said a CARIAD China employee. In February 2024, after Han Sanchu took office as the CEO of CARIAD China, he once conducted an internal Coding Test to assess the abilities of the CARIAD software team.

A detail is that Han Sanchu not only personally prepared the questions but also personally participated in this test.

"It is said that Mr. Han took third place himself," said the CARIAD China employee, adding that in this light, the original Volkswagen R&D team "is also quite capable."

The brand-new team of 500 self-developed Chinese members, as well as the cooperation between Volkswagen and XPeng, have laid a solid foundation for the research and development of the CEA platform led by Han Sanchu. It is against this backdrop that Volkswagen China has already set up the next-generation platform.

Next-generation platform, completely independently developed.

"We have indeed initiated the development of the next-generation platform, and it is completely independent development."

On the eve of the 2025 Shanghai Auto Show, a senior executive from Volkswagen Group China (hereinafter referred to as Volkswagen China) confirmed to Yiou Auto the existence of the next-generation platform. They also stated that the next-generation platform will undergo continuous iterations over approximately a two-year period.

Before this, some overseas media reported that Volkswagen China's Chairman and CEO, Ralf Brandstätter, has further upgraded the "In China, For China" strategy by starting the development of a new electric platform internally code-named CSP (China Scalable Platform).

Unlike the CEA platform, which will complete mass production and delivery this year, the CSP platform is no longer a product of the cooperation between Volkswagen China and XPeng Motors; it will be independently developed by Volkswagen China.

Regarding the next-generation platform, VCTC CEO Wu Borui did not reveal more information during an interview with Yiou Auto and other media. However, he provided information on the platform iteration cycle that matches what Yiou Auto previously obtained: "In the future, our goal is to further shorten the platform update cycle to 24 months."

A 24-month period has long been regarded by Chinese car companies as the standard cycle for iteration.

In 2023, Zhu Jiangming, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Leapmotor, stated: "The update cycle for intelligent electric vehicles is two years, and keeping up with this pace is essential to avoid falling behind."

The Volkswagen China team is currently pursuing a platform iteration every two years. Even before the launch of new vehicles on the CEA platform, Volkswagen China has already started planning the construction of an AI computing power center. The joint venture Coolcore, established by Volkswagen China and Horizon Robotics, has independently developed an AI data engineering platform called GAIA. This platform possesses powerful intelligent data collection capabilities and highly automated data analysis capabilities, enabling highly automated AI model training.

If the platform iteration and data center construction can be successfully advanced, it means that Volkswagen China's R&D speed will be able to keep pace with China's leading new forces, which will greatly benefit its product competitiveness. Why is there confidence in achieving this?

Beride emphasized the importance of the "In China, For China" strategy and Volkswagen's implementation of this strategy: "For us, 'In China, For China' is not an empty phrase, but our working principle. Many companies mention 'In China, For China,' but for us, it is a concrete, practical strategy."