The VW will focus on autonomous driving in the next few years. In four years, the first ID.Buzz shuttles should be on German roads by themselves.
The VW Group once celebrated itself and its products on a large scale. The head of communications proudly announced a number of visitors that was always in the four-digit range and – according to the rumor mill – had to increase every time. And now? “Sic transit gloria mundi” the fame of the world is so ephemeral,) a classical philologist would call out and throw his hands in the air. Herbert Diess is now holding court in front of 200 guests in a small hall near the main train station in the heart of Munich, an area where different nationalities meet. Fits the self-imposed claim of the car manufacturer to be modern, open and tolerant. Herbert Diess lives this principle and eagerly discussed in front of the building with some Green Peace representatives who were there.
Within the walls, the wiry manager was “all business” again. The CEO is convinced that the automotive industry will grow rapidly by 2030. However, the driver for this trend will not be electromobility, but autonomous driving. According to Diess, 85 percent of the self-acting vehicles will be sold to private individuals in nine years and 15 percent to shuttle services. Ascending trend. By the way, the first VW to be used as a shuttle will be the ID.Buzz. The first tests on public roads are to begin soon and in four years the robotic minibuses in Hamburg are to be making their rounds.
In order to be at the forefront of autonomous driving, VW has joined forces with Ford with Argo AI and has invested 2.6 billion dollars. “You had the best concept,” explains Diess. Unlike other companies that develop the technology for robo-cars, the Pittsburgh-based company takes “maximum complexity” (Diess) as its goal. That means autonomous driving in the cities, i.e. level 5. The individual steps there then come automatically. “That takes longer than with others,” says Diess, who agrees with Bryan Salesky that it doesn’t work, again and again to present effective demonstrations of autonomous driving.
The Argo AI boss is someone who is relieved of having to write the most important codes of his software himself. Together with VW, this know-how is to come into the cars. In order for this symbiosis of the digital and analog automotive world to work, the two partners have a powerful LIDAR sensor that can “see” 400 meters away. And that by day and by night. In order to teach the cars to drive automatically, deep learning is still used, i.e. the computer is programmed with the situation and the correct reaction. After all, the robotic car has to know that there is a person in the bird carnival costume.
The goals are ambitious. In the second half of the decade, the vehicles of the VW brands should master level 4 autonomous driving. The first is the Artemis project, from which cars such as the A8 successor Grand Sphere, which Audi is presenting at the IAA, will emerge from 2025. “Artemis will come onto the market with level 3 capabilities, but have level 4 under their belt,” says Audi boss Markus Duesmann. In addition to the large wheel that the VW group turns in autonomous driving, Cariad is to create the right software. The VW subsidiary wants to create a flexible system in which several generations of computers can be installed during the life cycle of the car. As an alternative to this, it should also be possible in the future to replace or retrofit the computer unit.
Wireless updates are one of them. “For infotainment this can happen every week”; explains Cariad CEO Dirk Hilgenberg. It is important that the software is robust and meets the automotive requirements for reliability. The differentiation of the individual brands will also take place in the future via the software or infotainment.
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