>Maybe eventually they'll make Rivian a Volkswagen brand.
That seems counter productive though, they seem to want Rivian tech. Usually their brands are managed centrally, so VW is developing platforms and architectures, which are then used by Skoda, Seat and Audio to make their models.
VW decided to decentralize development, especially software. This is true for the Chinese market, which is very important to VW. Germans like knobs, Chinese like playfull interfaces with gadgets.
Yes, that is true. Maybe they want to do something similar in the US? Where they have some subsidiary doing largely independent development for more region specific models?
Car companies centrally develop platforms, but those platforms include a lot of third party components. It's not so strange as it sounds, just like motherboard manufacturers shipping boards with tons of third party chips.
So it makes sense if VW were to integrate couple Rivian parts into a platform. It won't be a one-side win nor loss.
I'm not certain, but I think it isn't like VW developing platforms and everyone using it. It's more every company in the conglomerate taking turns or having specializations and everyone else using that.
So that a Golf platform is first developed by VW and then productized by VM and Skoda, but Skoda is already developing next year's platform which VW will use.
>but Skoda is already developing next year's platform which VW will use.
Do you have any evidence for Skoda developing a platform on their own?
Audi and Porsche did do their own platform development, but that was never used by VW or Seat or Skoda and was for a completely different market segment.
This platform has been developed by VW over a decade ago.
It is not something which Skoda has developed on their own, it is Skoda getting to do legacy support for one small part of a large platform family.
"...the Czech manufacturer's development of the specialised MQB-A0-IN"
Not developing as in starting from zero, but developing as in taking an existing platform and modifying/improving it for a new series of cars (in this case simplifying the platform to make it cheaper to produce, and targeting the very lowest end of the car market). Admittedly not a platform we're likely to see in 'the west', and sure it's nothing fancy, but I guess you have to start somewhere.
edit: reading back through the original thread, I agree that you are correct that Skoda is not developing a ground up platform that will be the basis for several VAG cars.
That seems counter productive though, they seem to want Rivian tech. Usually their brands are managed centrally, so VW is developing platforms and architectures, which are then used by Skoda, Seat and Audio to make their models.