How Ulrich Hackenberg Revolutionized the Way Cars Are Built

Figure 1: Under Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, VW Group expanded its Modular Matrix Systems with MQB for transverse models from city cars to the compact class and MLB for longitudinal models from compact executive to upper-mid-size. Porsche’s MSB adds a matrix for upper-mid-size luxury cars. The systems boost parts commonality and strengthen Supply Chain performance.

In Hamburg I interviewed Ulrich Hackenberg, creator of Audi’s MLB longitudinal engined kit (A4 to A8 and the Bentley Continental GT) and Volkswagen’s MQB transverse engined kit, used from superminis to 7 seat SUVs across Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Cupra and Škoda.
I felt genuinely humbled to meet such an influential figure and deeply grateful to Christian Eskildsen CEO of North European Modularization (NEM) for making the interview for effektivitet.dk possible.

Figure 2: Interviewing Ulrich Hackenberg, widely seen as one of the defining engineering figures in the European automotive industry and previously in charge of Technical Development at Audi AG and Volkswagen, at the North European Modularization (NEM) office in Hamburg.

Early Focus on Automotive Modules and interdisciplinary Teams
Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg doesn’t begin his story with Volkswagen, modular architectures, or the 25,000 engineers he used to lead. He starts much smaller. With a Mercedes Silver Arrow, a spring-powered toy he could steer with a metal rod. “It could drive on its own,” he says. “And I could influence it by steering. That fascinated me as a child.”

The fascination stayed. He was “always a car kid.” Holiday jobs on construction sites helped him save for his first real car. A Fiat 500 bought for 400 Deutsche Mark when he was 17. “That car gave me freedom and independent mobility,” he says. “But I had to earn the money for petrol. That mattered.”

Engineering pulled harder than music or sport. At the Technische Hochschule he threw himself into mechanical and automotive engineering, vehicle dynamics, stability and motorcycle behavior. As a student he led what became a modular research concept: a metal-tube test vehicle with swappable front and rear modules for experimenting with suspension systems. He recruited students from Aachen University to join his team. He was already thinking in automotive systems and interdisciplinary teams. In 1978, Germany’s Federal Ministry for Research and Technology launched Auto 2000. An effort to imagine the “car for the year 2000.”

That was when the industry noticed him. Offers arrived from Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi. Hackenberg went to Audi. He became head of the advanced vehicle mechanics division.

Figure 3: Under Hackenberg’s direction, MQB fixed the pedal-to-axle distance while allowing other dimensions to vary, enabling shared architecture across multiple models.

Leading people to grow by wanting to understand important details
Ulrich Hackenberg thinks in two scales at once. He reads the smallest mechanical cause with precision. And he understands how such choices interact with the broader architecture of modular vehicle systems.

That ability defined the Audi A6 project. With a small budget, the new A6 had to grow from the Audi A4. “A technical decision,” he says, “and a strategic one.” What began as a constraint on the A6 later became the backbone of the B-C-D architecture, the structural logic that would later support everything from the Audi A4 to the Audi A6 and Audi A8, to the Passat and Skoda Superb, all the way to the VW Phaeton and even the Bentley Continental.

But his real hallmark is how he leads. “I want to know why,” Hackenberg says. He notices when people rely on answers they have inherited rather than understood. Believers, he calls them. On a visit outside Europe, a simple question exposed this. The manager hesitated, then reached for his phone. “He needed support,” Hackenberg says, not as criticism, but as a reminder that leadership begins with genuine curiosity.
When leaders keep asking, people feel seen. They reflect. They understand their own work more deeply. They grow.

Leaders must build trust and offer help. When a developer argued that the wipers were chattering due to insufficient testing because of too little rain, he ordered tests in Ireland, where constant rain made the fault repeatable. Once the issue appeared reliably, the solution followed. Detail becoming insight. Insight becoming progress.

This movement between detail and strategic overview shaped everything that came after. It is what allowed Hackenberg’s team to define the fixed points of Baukasten, the mounts, the geometry, the electrical layout, the shared interfaces, the small decisions that made complex modular systems possible. That dual vision became decisive in his next task: turning individual models into coordinated systems.

MLB: Audi’s Path to Standardizing Its Longitudinal-Engine Models
It began with a small but telling limitation. “At Ingolstadt we built the Audi A4. At Neckarsulm the Audi A6,” Ulrich Hackenberg says. “Both excellent. But you could not move one to the other plant. Their underlying logic was not aligned.” MLB became his answer. “I wanted one structure that could support several cars,” he says. He brought engineers in Ingolstadt together with production specialists in Neckarsulm and Ingolstadt. They built a common structure for future longitudinal models. Engineering and production working as one. “It was new but consequent for all,” Hackenberg says. “But coordination begins when people sit at the same table.”

MQB: How the Group Learned to Develop Cars Together
Volkswagen extended that mindset across the entire transverse range. And here, the scale changed again. “When I returned to VW, the scope was far greater,” Hackenberg says. “More brands, more countries, and the joint ventures in China. If we wanted efficiency, we needed one system for everyone.” So, he created one.

Figure 4: The evolution of the VW Golf reflects the move to MQB, with Wolfsburg as the lead plant training Škoda, SEAT and joint venture teams in the new architecture.

A central team in Wolfsburg, joined by colleagues from Ingolstadt, Škoda in Mladá Boleslav, SEAT in Martorell and the facilities in Changchun and Anting. “I told them: this is not a VW project or an Audi project. It is a Group project.” Their assignment was unprecedented. A shared architecture for almost all transverse models: Polo, Golf, Audi A3, Passat, compact vans, light commercial vehicles and later Touran, Tiguan and T Roc. More than forty models developed in one coordinated effort.

“Each brand could tell us what they needed,” he says. “Engineering, production, logistics, quality — everyone was involved.”

And then came the decisive point. “At a fixed date, input stopped. Otherwise you lose clarity.” The concept was frozen, reviewed, challenged and refined through one or two improvement loops. After that, the conversation shifted to finishing and industrializing the system together. The result was a shared reference layout that allowed wide variation in size and character while preserving structural logic. Wolfsburg, home of the Golf, became the lead plant and trained teams from Škoda, SEAT and the joint ventures.

Figure 5: VW Bratislava uses the MQB system to build multiple SUVs on one flexible line.

Suppliers followed the same rhythm. MQB introduced module families used across brands, enabling new engines and hybrid systems to be integrated and deployed widely.
“It made production more flexible,” he says. Plants could build petrol, diesel, natural gas, mild hybrid, plug in hybrid and even EV versions of the same model on one line.
By 2023, MQB had supported more than forty five million vehicles across Volkswagen, Audi, Škoda, SEAT and Cupra.
“What mattered was the discipline,” Hackenberg says. “MQB worked because the Group learned to develop cars together.”

Figure 6: Developed under Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, MQB standardizes Volkswagen’s transverse architecture and underpins key models like the VW Golf, Tiguan, Passat, Audi A3, Skoda Octavia and Seat Leon.

MSB: The Joint Structure for Porsche and Bentley’s Luxury Cars
Hackenberg was not personally involved, but his modular system had meanwhile become established throughout the company and continued at the upper end of the portfolio. Porsche developed MSB in Weissach for its large longitudinal models and for Bentley. It debuted with the Panamera and later supported the 2. generation of Continental GT and Flying Spur, produced in Leipzig and Crewe.

Hackenberg’s Greatest Success Was Unlocking Supplier Potential
His modular systems helped push Volkswagen from six to ten million cars, a shift economists still cite as one of Europe’s most influential. But when Ulrich Hackenberg is asked about his greatest success, he points somewhere else entirely.

“The most important thing was that our modularity made the suppliers stronger,” he says. Fewer variants did more than simplify engineering. It reshaped the entire value chain. Once architectures became common, suppliers could automate in earnest, because automation only pays when volumes are high and stable. One component could serve multiple models. Production lines became predictable. Costs fell, quality rose, and volatility drained out of the system. “That clarity,” he says, “let them scale. It was good for us, but also good for them.”

And the effect spread far beyond Wolfsburg. With 22 plants across Europe, Asia and the Americas, the modular strategy created a steady global demand for standardized parts. It protects jobs, not just at Wolfsburg, but across continents

In the end, Hackenberg’s greatest success was giving a whole tier of suppliers the stability to modernize and the confidence to invest.

Figure 7: Volkswagen’s timeline moves from single-class platforms to shared modules across small and midsize cars, to a fully modular system that works across the entire vehicle range.

Building the Future on Strong Foundations
Asked how long MQB and MLB will live, even as new models continue to roll out under Oliver Blume, Ulrich Hackenberg doesn’t hesitate. “People think MQB is old,” he says. “It’s not. It’s mature.” He reminds us that the platform launched with the Golf 7 in 2012 and has since grown into more than sixty million cars across over a hundred models. “As long as it is adapted to new technologies but keeps the MQB-architecture it will be able to be competitive and fill the factories.”

Figure 8: MQB evo supports advanced petrol, diesel, mild-hybrid and plug-in hybrid drivetrains across the Volkswagen Group. It underpins models such as the VW Golf 8, Tiguan III, Passat B9, Audi A3, Skoda Octavia and Seat Leon.

From here, Hackenberg turns to the Group’s broader direction under Blume.

Hackenberg explains: “I have been observing the company for 10 years now from the distance of an observer, who, however, has no insight into the decision-making constraints and opportunities. After an initial search for the right strategy, which produced various platforms like J1, MEBxyz and others”

“I rely on the company’s strength in consolidating the different approaches regarding hardware and software platforms and avoiding the divergence of the various approaches. New partners like Rivian in the field of electronics and software, as well as Xpeng for China’s zonal architecture, driver assistance, and fast charging, bring in interesting technologies.”

“Similar to the classic hardware-driven kits developed during my career, I see an opportunity to achieve acceptance and synergies by consolidating software architectures together in order to avoid the divergence of individual one-off solutions.”

What matters most is continuity. “Oliver grew up with MQB and the other matrixes,” he notes. “He knows what works.” That is why MQB and MLB remain in place while the future is being engineered on top of them. Combustion engines will stay in the portfolio well into the 2030s, and the factories built around these architectures still run efficiently.

So his answer to the question is clear: “Five to seven more years at least. Probably longer.”

A short pause follows. Then, almost approving: “Blume understands that instinctively.”

When Modularity Moves, Resilience Follows
Manufacturers now operate in a world shaped by war in Europe, unstable energy markets, Trump-era tariff swings, rerouted shipping lanes and persistent chip shortages. Wiring harnesses disappear in Ukraine, semiconductors slow in Taiwan, and even Germany has had to rethink an energy system once built on cheap Russian gas. Disruptions arrive without warning, from every direction.

When asked how Volkswagen handles such shocks, Ulrich Hackenberg does not begin with geopolitics. He begins with modularity.

“Once a major tool broke in China,” he says. “A replacement took 2 months. But we were able to buffer the time with parts from Europe and the United States. That was the benefit of double redundancy.”

You do not hope, that something happens.” But MQB was built on that logic. Cars had to be buildable in Europe, China and the United States. Gearboxes sourced in both regions. Climate systems supplied by more than one partner. Electronics pushed toward common components to reduce chip dependency. “Basic rule,” he says, “if you want resilience, the same product must be manufacturable in several sites.” Discipline makes the system work: shared standards, central coordination, no unnecessary deviations.

What began as protection against internal failures has proved equally valuable for external shocks. Whether a tool breaks or a shipping lane closes, the response is the same. You shift, you switch, you keep production moving, because the structure allows it. And Hackenberg notes that this architecture also helped Volkswagen when the United States raised tariff barriers, because the Group already had significant local production inside the American market.

Circularity Without the Hype, Seen Through Hackenberg’s Eyes
Volkswagen has been doing what most OEMs now call circular economy for more than seven decades. Long before the terminology arrived, the Group ran an industrial take back system: authorized dealers collected worn engines, gearboxes and electronics, the parts returned through controlled logistics, were rebuilt to factory standards and went back on the road as Exchange Parts.

Hackenberg puts it simply. Refurbishment? Volkswagen has done that forever,” he says.

For him, this is not a breakthrough. It is the way things have always worked.

As an OEM, Volkswagen controls the architecture, the diagnostics, the spare part flows, and the dealer network. That is what makes large scale take back and refurbishment possible. Gearboxes and major electronic modules are the natural candidates. They follow predictable wear patterns, can be removed cleanly and rebuilt with confidence. “You analyze the oil, the mileage. Then you know whether a gearbox can be rebuilt,” he says. The lubricant becomes a diagnostic instrument, revealing the metal’s hidden history.

And then the part he does not say but the logic invites.

Modularization strengthens the potential for circularity because shared components can move through the same OEM controlled loops across models and brands. The economics improve. The volumes rise.

Other components move straight into material loops. Aluminium, for instance, is routinely taken back and remelted because it delivers enormous energy savings for recycling. High quality. Low climate cost.

“But batteries develop so fast,” he says. “That is why it makes no sense to reuse the entire battery today. If you put an older battery into a modern car, the technology is already outdated.” He is precise. “The important thing is to get the metal out.” This means recovering nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium.”

“Only in a few years will it make sense to reuse entire battery modules once the development no longer moves this fast,” he says.

Volkswagen’s economic role
Asked how he views Volkswagen’s wider economic role in Germany and Europe today, Hackenberg smiles first.

“I am the wrong guy,” he says. “I have been out of the business for too long.”

But he answers anyway. Engineers usually do.

“Volkswagen matters because it can build good cars people can afford. That is how you create value. That is how you create jobs.”

For him, the company’s significance rests on its modular system: the industrial backbone that once unified components under MQB and now shifts toward the SSP platform with fewer variants and tighter integration between hardware and software.

And when the conversation turns to leadership, he is just as steady.

“Mr. Blume understands the system,” Hackenberg says. “He grew up in it. He knows how to keep it efficient and how to modernize it.”

Volkswagen has a strong modular foundation, he says. And with Blume in charge, he feels the company is taking steps that fit the way Volkswagen has always created its economic weight in Europe.

Global Competitive Strategies: VW vs. Toyota, BYD and Tesla
Ulrich Hackenberg speaks with the quiet assurance of the man who created MQB, a system that will remain central to Volkswagen for years. Beside it stands SSP, the EV platform that will gradually take on a larger role. For a period the two architectures will work side by side, carrying both the present and the future of the group. Looking across the industry, Hackenberg observes that scale is now being pursued in several different ways, each with its own logic. Volkswagen continues to refine its path with MQB and SSP, while other manufacturers explore their own interpretations of what scale can mean.

Toyota chooses flexibility. “They have their own modular system,” Hackenberg says. TNGA and e-TNGA, different bodies, different assembly methods, different drivetrains, but regarding one model class different models on the same line.

From 2026 they will add front and rear Giga casting. Toyota shows that diversity itself can be a strategic strength.

BYD is the case that makes him pause. “I have been following Dr. Wang’s modular strategy since he launched it,” he says, and the respect is obvious.

“Dr. Wang came from battery production, and his approach reflects that background. BYD produces its own batteries, motors, high voltage components, electronics and semiconductors and even sells batteries to other carmakers. Their Platform 3.0 grows from this integration.”

Tesla represents a fourth direction. “High integration,” Hackenberg says. “Many functions in one piece.” He is referring to Giga casting, the large aluminium sections that replace hundreds of parts. Hackenberg acknowledges the advantages of consolidating functional vehicle sections and their pre-assembly but sees a limitation in the variability of derivable vehicle concepts with different proportions and dimensions.

The strategy of limiting the fixation of vehicle sections only to the components with the highest costs allows for the conceptual diversity of MQB-derived vehicle models in Hackenberg’s modular systems, which cover a wide range from the Polo to the Atlas and enabled design icons such as the TT. He notes that the strategy makes it extremely expensive for Tesla to introduce new models: the tooling and machinery required for Giga casting are so costly that each new variant becomes a major investment.

Hackenberg ends the discussion with three numbers he knows by heart. In Africa thirty people share one car, in China eight, in the United States one. “The real future of demand is not in the United States,” he says. “The world is Africa and China.” It is this shift that shapes his view of the global market. These are the regions where car ownership will rise, and where MQB and SSP must be ready to compete. And as Hackenberg reminds us, one strength remains decisive for Volkswagen and Toyota, and still out of reach for Tesla and BYD: dealer networks and service workshops.

Modularization beyond the automotive world
The real question becomes:

Is Europe prepared to use modularization in ways that genuinely strengthen its industries?

Hackenberg takes a moment before answering. “Some parts of the automotive sector have moved in that direction,” he says. “But modularization is not a goal. It is a tool. And companies usually know for themselves when it supports their products and their markets.”

To illustrate the limits, he turns to China. “They are fragmented. Every province has its own brands. Too many identities and too little scale. They will consolidate and they will automate. Only then will modularization become truly useful because the tool will finally fit the problem.”

He broadens the view. “Outside automotive, many industries already use modular ideas in ways that suit their reality. Appliances, machinery, industrial systems. I would not tell them how. They know their constraints better than I do.”

A small smile, almost apologetic. “At this point, Christian can answer better than I can.”

Figure 9: NEM underscores that mastering modular strategy is a learning journey. The organization must build new capabilities and align them across the entire Value Chain.

Christian Eskildsen, CEO of the North European Modularization Network, where Hackenberg contributes as an expert, continues the thought with greater certainty. “NEM exists because we see real potential,” Eskildsen says. “It is a non-competitive learning platform where companies, universities and specialists work side by side. They share methods, cases and tools and help each other make modularization practical and valuable.” Through workstreams, training programmes, network meetings and hands-on workshops, NEM offers a place where industries learn together and accelerate faster than they could alone.

“Industries move when learning becomes collective,” Eskildsen says.

Epilogue
Hackenberg, regarded as one of the defining engineering figures in modern European automotive history, no longer builds the matrixes millions rely on. But he leaves a final thought, offered quietly and without ceremony:
“Modularization is only a tool. The real skill is knowing when it matters and trusting others to decide that for themselves.”

_____________________

Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg

German automotive engineer. Born in 1950 in Herne. Educated at RWTH Aachen, doctorate in automotive engineering in 1984. Joined Audi in 1985. Led vehicle mechanics, concept development and technical project management for models including the Audi 80, A2, A3, A4, A6, A8 and TT. Returned to Volkswagen in 1998 to head body and concept development. Rejoined Audi in 2002, where he created the Modular Longitudinal Platform (MLB). From 2007 he served on Volkswagen’s Brand Board for Technical Development and developed the Modular Transverse Platform (MQB), the foundation for more than sixty million vehicles across the Group. Board Member for Technical Development at Audi from 2013 to 2015. Member of the Supervisory Board of Valmet Automotive since 2016. Contributor to the North European Modularization Network (NEM).