#ModularPlatforms

Volkswagen is two weeks away from unveiling the future of its company, with high hopes that it will scrub away some of the stigma left by the diesel emissions scandal.

The automaker plans to pivot from oil to electrons with a heavily electrified vehicle lineup, and a showpiece concept heading to the Paris Motor Show precedes an actual EV with up to 373 miles of range, Autoblog reports.

Ahead of the 2015 Frankfurt Auto Show, official images of the 2016 MINI Clubman escaped onto the Internet for all the world to see [now updated with info from the official press release – CA].

Out and about at a Chevron in Baker, Calif. this weekend, a PriusChat forum member happened upon what could be the fourth-gen Toyota Prius.

The culmination of Toyota’s Global Vision plan, the Toyota New Global Architecture is key to the automaker’s new powertrain and platform development plans.

By 2019, the face of Volvo will change as the Sino-Swedish automaker begins restructuring its offerings, with the new XC90 leading the way.

Michael Macht, the man in charge of production at Volkswagen, is leaving immediately, with Automotive News Europe reporting that VW CEO Martin Winterkorn was unhappy with the rollout of VW’s MQB “toolkit” that will underpin everything from B-segment hatchbacks like the Polo to large sedans like the Passat.

In India for the relaunched Datsun brand’s first car, the Go, CEO of the Renault-Nissan alliance, Carlos Ghosn, announced that Renault and Nissan will jointly develop a platform for low cost and ultra low cost cars aimed at India and other emerging markets, which Ghosn believes will make up 60% of the global automotive market by 2016. To do that, the alliance will spend another $5 billion on investments in their Indian operations over the next five years. Renault-Nissan is committed to using India as its global hub for emerging markets, developing the cars there as well as assembling and exporting them.

We’ve discussed the importance of scale countless times on this website. La Tribune takes a brief look at Ford, Volkswagen and PSA and the different ways they are working to achieve economies of scale in one of the toughest markets in the auto industry; the C-Segment.

What will the faithful say when the find out that the next Volkswagen Phaeton is based on a Golf platform Audi platform? Like it or not, that’s the way it’s going to be.

Edit: I mixed up the VW platforms. Turns out it will be the longitudinal version rather than the transverse MQB.