From 2025 autonomous buses in Hamburg
Volkswagen wants to make autonomous driving accessible as soon as possible and self-driving Volkswagen products must be commonplace worldwide by 2030. That’s the British mark Coach on the basis of statements by CEO Thomas Schäfer, who does point out the complexity of the technology. The first actual self-driving result should nevertheless be found in Hamburg as early as 2025.
Although Volkswagen recently stopped investing with Ford in Argo AI, a software company that developed autonomous driving systems, the brand does not give up its ambitions regarding the technology. Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schäfer wants VW to be able to offer self-driving products as early as possible and the Germans are investing heavily for this. Subsidiary and software company Cariad is responsible for the development and cooperates with Horizon Robotics for the Chinese market. For autonomous driving systems for the rest of the world, there is a partnership with Bosch.
Cariad’s efforts should lead to Volkswagen consumer products that can drive fully autonomously becoming commonplace by 2030. Schäfer says so Coach. However, VW wants to be able to offer autonomous driving as a service five years earlier. In that year, the first self-driving buses from Moia should be available in Hamburg. While Cariad is involved in consumer products, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is leading the development of autonomous driving as a service under the Mobility as a Service denominator.
Level 3 autonomous driving from next year
The next results of Volkswagen’s research into self-driving cars will come next year. From then on, the first cars should appear with systems that can be used anywhere in the world that allow the driver to take their hands off the wheel for shorter periods (self-driving level 2). In built-up areas, at least. From next year, some Volkswagen Group models will be able to drive autonomously on level 3, where hands are allowed off the steering wheel for extended periods of time and the car performs all highway driving tasks itself.
Legislation is one of the barriers to overcome when developing the systems. For example, many countries have their own rules for whether or not self-driving systems can be used. However, that is not the only thing that Volkswagen encounters. Technologically it is a huge challenge, says Schäfer: “The camera systems, chips, energy consumption, calculation speed; it is incredibly complex. The car will be the device that collects the most data.”
Nevertheless, Volkswagen continues to pursue its ambitions, because according to Schäfer you can earn a lot of money with a technology like this if you are there early. In addition, the technology is so complex that a wait-and-see attitude would, he believes, lead to too great a backlog. We are curious to what extent Volkswagen products can actually drive autonomously in 2030 – and how far the competition will be with the technology by then.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl