Volkswagen expects production of vehicles based on its new MQB modular assembly architecture to soar in the next few years, Chief Financial Officer Hans Dieter Poetsch told a German newspaper.

The MQB platform that Volkswagen has been developing since 2007 allows the automaker to share more components between different models and engines. It is being implemented over the next four years at a cost Morgan Stanley estimates at nearly $70 billion.

“This year we’re likely to be below the 1 million mark regarding vehicles based on the MQB,” Poetsch was quoted as saying in an interview published on Saturday in the financial newspaper Boersen-Zeitung. “The number should double to nearly 2 million vehicles in 2014. For 2016, we are expecting about 4 million vehicles.”

VW Group plans to build more than 40 new vehicles across its volume brands on the front-wheel-drive modular transverse matrix (MQB) architecture. The first cars to use the MQB – the VW Golf, Audi A3, Skoda Octavia and Seat Leon – are already on sale.

Poetsch also told the Boersen-Zeitung that weak car demand in Europe had prompted VW to reduce and postpone some investments not directly related to products.

“On the costs side, we are tightening our belt more closely,” he said. The cost savings affected internal processes and structures, he said.

Poetsch said that VW expected the Western European car market this year to be at a low point not seen since 1993.