Audi prepares Györ for small electric car drives

Audi has started preparations at its plant in Györ, Hungary, for the production of the new generation of electric drives called MEBeco for the Volkswagen Group's small electric cars announced from 2025.

The first systems for this have arrived and the planning of the production lines is underway, according to Audi Hungaria. Audi had already confirmed in June 2022 that the drives for the MEBeco will come from Györ and announced that a new production area would be set up for the production of motors for small electric cars.

Audi Hungaria has now also provided some details about the production: the vertical range of manufacture has been increased, which also requires “new competences”. For example, the disc pack for the MEBeco is being mass-produced within the company for the first time (and apparently not sourced as a supplier component, as was previously the case). The same applies to the rotors and power electronics, which are now also manufactured directly in Györ.

The Ingolstadt-based company has been producing electric motors at the Hungarian plant since mid-2018 – initially for the e-tron quattro built in Brussels (now the Q8 e-tron). Production was expanded around a year later. And since November 2023, the electric motors for the Premium Platform Electric (PPE) have also been built in series in Györ – for the upcoming Audi Q6 e-tron, for example. Around 700 employees produce up to 2,000 PPE motors a day on 15,000 square metres.

“Just a few months ago, we successfully launched series production of our PPE (Premium Platform Electric) electric platform drives and have already started preparing for the next generation of electric drives, the MEBeco,” says Robert Buttenhauser, Board Member for Engine Production at Audi Hungaria. “This also shows the intensity of the transformation that is taking place in our company. We are constantly preparing our staff for the production of the new engine range, which will require new activities and competences.”

The MEBeco is the base that used to be called MEB Entry or MEB Small – the starting point for the series models of the VW ID.1/ID.2, the offshoot of Cupra, which will presumably be called Raval, and the corresponding small electric car from Skoda. The electric motors for these vehicles will come from Hungary, but the vehicle production itself will be based in Spain: The ID.2 and Cupra will come from the Seat plant in Martorell, while the small VW SUV (presumably called the ID.2 X) and its Skoda counterpart are to be manufactured in Pamplona.

audi.hu (in Hungarian)