Sustainable mobility, connectivity and automated driving
Mobility of people and goods is a basic prerequisite for economic growth and social development, especially in times of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, natural resources are dwindling and climate change is advancing. This calls for comprehensive mobility concepts to minimize the environmental impact. Such solutions need to be efficient, sustainable, crisis-proof, customer-oriented and accessible anytime and anywhere.
We are researching and developing such concepts and solutions in our Group-wide alliance: when shaping the future of mobility, we are looking not only at the automobile, its components and related services, but at all modes of transport and transport infrastructures, at people’s mobility habits and at other relevant factors. Innovations such as digital connectivity and automated driving allow for new approaches to solving problems. We strive to utilize these and thus to play our part in a comprehensive mobility system for the future and to help shape our industry’s transformation.
In its pursuit of autonomous driving, the Volkswagen Group further improved its assistance systems and automated driving functions and introduced these in vehicles in 2020. The objective is to market highly automated driving functions for private vehicles, shared mobility systems and commercial mobility providers as a core competency of the Group. The Volkswagen Group has presented its vision of an autonomous mobility system by unveiling the Sedric family, comprising fully autonomous vehicles for short- and long-distance mobility, as well as sports cars, self-driving delivery vehicles and heavy trucks. These vehicles will enable new forms of mobility in both cities and rural areas, particularly for user groups that have so far been excluded from access to mobility.
As part of the TOGETHER 2025+ strategy, we are working with the Software-enabled Car Company module to make software development one of the core competencies of the Volkswagen Group. Starting on January 1, 2020, we have brought together all of our interests and subsidiaries that develop software for vehicles and digital ecosystems in the Car.Software Organisation, an independent entity with Group responsibility. This first step involved more than 3,500 employees. Since mid-2020, experts who used to work in the various Group brands and regions have been working together under the umbrella of the Car.Software Organisation.
The Car.Software Organisation is developing software for five applications within the Group:
- a uniform vehicle operating system “vw.os” for all Group vehicles as well as their connectivity with the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud;
- a standardized infotainment platform;
- all assistance systems including highly automated driving and parking;
- functions for connecting the drivetrain, chassis and charging technology; and
- ecosystems for all the brands’ mobility services and digital business models.
From the middle of this decade onwards, all new vehicle models throughout the Group are to be based on a uniform, cross-brand software platform, including the “vw.os” operating system and Volkswagen Automotive Cloud, as well as a uniform architecture. At the end of 2024, this architecture will be used for the first time in an Audi model as part of the Artemis project. It is then to be deployed in high-volume vehicles to generate economies of scale and thus reduce the cost of in-vehicle software for all brands.