The giant turned around, desperate. Editor’s note: This article comes from ”
future car Daily “(micro-channel public number ID: auto-time), Author: Zhang.
Author | Zhang Yi
Edit | Xu Yang
The public wants to put more chips in the field of autonomous driving.
It will promote autonomous driving to a brand new strategic level. As the world’s first large-scale auto group to set up a self-driving subsidiary (VWAT), a “radical test” has begun under the leadership of CEO Herbert Diss.
The Volkswagen Group expects that VWAT will be the world ’s “most funded startup”, and all autonomous driving resources within the group will be concentrated in VWAT by the end of 2019. Ammunition and armor are ready. The self-driving rookie, headquartered in Munich and Wolfsburg, is a rookie. It plans to set up branches in Silicon Valley and China this year and next.
At the same time, the Volkswagen Group is also concentrating on strengthening the competitive advantage of the Audi brand. Audi is the earliest self-driving brand developed by Volkswagen. Starting in 2020, this car hegemony, which has ranked first in global sales for four consecutive years, has moved to the stage of a wholly-owned holding plan for the Audi brand. Diss said that “Audi brand’s future plans will be of great help to increase profits.”
Volkswagen faces the common challenge of traditional enterprises: how to transform from a traditional car company into a technology company. The success or failure of autonomous driving is an important sign of the success of the transformation, and Audi’s accumulation in the field of autonomous driving plays a vital role.
Image source: Audi official
Audi headquarters “trade” Volkswagen software
“Audi A8 is the leader of L3 level autonomous driving. (Audi) should be the key development of Volkswagen’s autonomous driving.” An expert in the field of autonomous driving told the Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time).
Sihuan brand Audi has always been the core driving force of Volkswagen Group’s autonomous driving. At the end of the last century, Volkswagen’s earliest research and development of autonomous driving technology began with the cooperation between Volkswagen’s ERL Electronics Research Laboratory and the Audi brand. ERL built autonomous driving prototypes based on Audi brand models.
In recent years, Audi has maintained a leading position in the field of semi-autonomous driving technology application research and development. As early as 2014, Audi showed the A7 prototype equipped with Piloted Driving technology. In 2017, Audi released the world’s first L3 level autonomous driving production car-Audi A8.
Audi A8 on the street Source: Audi official
Entering 2020, Audi’s activity in the Volkswagen Group’s software division has increased significantly. At the end of February, Volkswagen Group announced that Audi ’s new CEO Marcus Dusman will take over the research and development of the Group, and the Audi brand headquarters will also become the core of the organizational structure of the Volkswagen Group ’s “Car.Software” department.
Car.Software is the department responsible for the digital transformation of Volkswagen Group. It mainly develops in-vehicle software including “vw.os” vehicle operating system and Volkswagen Cloud. This team, which was established less than a year ago, is expanding at an alarming rate. It is expected that by 2025, its R & D personnel will increase to 10,000, which is double the original number of 5,000.
There are also historical reasons for this important task to fall on Audi’s shoulders. The Audi brand, founded in 1909 by August Horch, a pioneer in the automotive industry, has continued its dedication to technological breakthroughs. The two major turning points of Volkswagen Group’s true platform strategy and modular platform also started with the Audi brand.
In the 1970s, the Volkswagen Group still could only expand the body form on a single-level model, and could not achieve cross-model production expansion. Until the late 1980s, the Audi 80 (B-level) and Audi 100 (C-level) began to share some parts and components, reducing the production cost of bicycles by 500 marks and 1500 marks respectively.
Moreover, Volkswagen Group’s first truly modular platform is also the modular platform MLB launched by Audi in 2007. It further improves platform compatibility and parts sharing, and can produce Audi brand models from B-level to D-level. Audi A4 to A8 can share the power system and chassis technology of the MLB platform, which is also suitable for D-class cars of Bentley and Porsche.
The Volkswagen Passat is also based on Audi. In 1973, the original Volkswagen Passat was designed based on the Audi 80 platform and body, and shared most of the mechanical systems including the longitudinal engine with the Audi 80. In 1997, the fifth-generation Passat, which shared the PL45 platform with Audi, was quickly popular, and its output climbed from 400,000 to more than 700,000 in the later period.
According to the Disney plan, the Group will strengthen its capabilities in intelligent interconnection and software development, and will invest 7 billion euros to promote the software platform in the next five years. If the progress goes smoothly, then all new models of the Volkswagen Group will use Volkswagen’s software platform developed by Car.Software, and Volkswagen’s self-developed automotive software will account for 60% of the market.
At present, Audi, the first pure electric vehicle that has been on the market, is the brand with the most accumulated drive test data of Volkswagen. It has launched large-scale drive tests on L4 level autonomous driving technology in Germany, the United States and China.
In addition, because the user groups of luxury brands are more accepting of autonomous driving, they are the first users of autonomous driving technology to land. As a single brand of the Volkswagen Group’s luxury brand group, Audi’s task on Volkswagen’s autonomous driving journey is bound to be not light.
Audi ’s first pure electric vehicle e-tron Source: Audi official
Audi Can we make the right choice among cross-industry contradictions?
But the Volkswagen Group did not bet everything, which is consistent with its usual style.
2018 4In October, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Disp showed considerable attention to autonomous driving technology as soon as he took office, quickly gathered partners around the world and successively contacted autonomous driving companies such as Argo AI, Waymo and Aurora.
In July 2019, Volkswagen announced that it will invest US $ 2.6 billion in Forgo ’s subsidiary Argo AI, of which US $ 1 billion will be paid in cash, and the remaining US $ 1.6 billion will be incorporated at a discount to Volkswagen ’s Audi self-driving subsidiary AID. Argo AI. After the capital injection, the valuation of Argo AI with a total of more than 700 people increased to US $ 7 billion, and AID became the new headquarters of Argo AI in Europe.
After a lapse of 3 months, Volkswagen announced the establishment of an autonomous driving subsidiary VWAT to develop L4-level autonomous vehicles and accelerate the commercial implementation of autonomous driving. According to Volkswagen official news, Argo.AI is biased towards software development for autonomous driving, and VWAT is mainly responsible for the engineering and industrialization of autonomous driving.
Automated driving tests software capabilities and artificial intelligence. A person in the autonomous driving industry told the Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) that training ADAS systems with a large amount of actual user data is the best way to learn and train autonomous driving.
In order to further obtain data from the passenger car market, the Volkswagen MEB platform that attempts to reduce costs through the scale effect of electric vehicles has been launched. The first ID.3 has entered the production line of the German factory, and the price of the first model is not expected to exceed 30,000 euros. The planned annual production capacity of 300,000 SAIC Volkswagen MEB plants will also be put into mass production in 6 months.
The LMC Automotive organization predicts that by 2025, Volkswagen will top the global electric vehicle sales list with an annual sales volume of 1.416 million units. This number is expected to be more than three times Tesla’s sales (410,200) by then.
At that time, the Audi brand headquarters, which is the core of the organizational structure of the “Car.Software” department of the Volkswagen Group, will play a role similar to the middle office, undertake the task of collecting and processing these massive user data, and provide the basis for decision-making for the development of autonomous driving software. .
2019 CES Asia Audi exhibited AI: ME concept Car
Future Auto Daily News
Volkswagen Group ’s senior vice president of autonomous driving, Alexander Hisinger, said, “We will continue to use the synergy among the Group ’s brands to reduce the cost of autonomous vehicles, high-performance computers and sensors.” Coincidentally, the autonomous driving subsidiary AID (Autonomous Intelligent Driving GmbH) established in 2017 by Audi also once played a key role as a supplier of autonomous driving technology for various brands of Volkswagen.
This auto manufacturer with an annual sales revenue of more than 1.9 trillion yuan chose to concentrate and firmly grasp autonomous driving and software R & D resources in its own hands. Complete control of the data may be an important reason why the Volkswagen Group is trying to control the Audi brand 100%.
Volkswagen Group is Audi ’s largest shareholder and holds approximately 99.64% of the subscribed capital of the Audi brand. At the end of February this year, Volkswagen Group announced plans to acquire 0.36% of the freely-tradable shares of the Audi brand, and has now submitted a request to the Audi brand to transfer a minority stake.
However, the traditional car companies turned to enter the software development, and indeed faced higher industry “barriers.” Industry insiders said to the Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) that the automotive industry that attaches great importance to safety requires PPM (Parts Per Million, the defect rate per million products) to maintain single digits, but the software industry ’s PPM can be as high as several thousand.
Although the latter has high safety risks, this is a prerequisite for the rapid development of autonomous vehicles and an important reason for Tesla to grow to the head. At the intersection of transformation, can Volkswagen Group’s auto veterans in the autonomous driving business be able to crossIt is still the key to make the right choice among contradictions in the industry.
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If you want to discuss Volkswagen ’s software business with us, please add the author WeChat (15201066825) to communicate, and please add the company and position.
Future Auto Daily ID: auto-time
But the Volkswagen Group did not bet everything, which is consistent with its usual style.
2018 4In October, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Disp showed considerable attention to autonomous driving technology as soon as he took office, quickly gathered partners around the world and successively contacted autonomous driving companies such as Argo AI, Waymo and Aurora.
In July 2019, Volkswagen announced that it will invest US $ 2.6 billion in Forgo ’s subsidiary Argo AI, of which US $ 1 billion will be paid in cash, and the remaining US $ 1.6 billion will be incorporated at a discount to Volkswagen ’s Audi self-driving subsidiary AID. Argo AI. After the capital injection, the valuation of Argo AI with a total of more than 700 people increased to US $ 7 billion, and AID became the new headquarters of Argo AI in Europe.
After a lapse of 3 months, Volkswagen announced the establishment of an autonomous driving subsidiary VWAT to develop L4-level autonomous vehicles and accelerate the commercial implementation of autonomous driving. According to Volkswagen official news, Argo.AI is biased towards software development for autonomous driving, and VWAT is mainly responsible for the engineering and industrialization of autonomous driving.
Automated driving tests software capabilities and artificial intelligence. A person in the autonomous driving industry told the Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) that training ADAS systems with a large amount of actual user data is the best way to learn and train autonomous driving.
In order to further obtain data from the passenger car market, the Volkswagen MEB platform that attempts to reduce costs through the scale effect of electric vehicles has been launched. The first ID.3 has entered the production line of the German factory, and the price of the first model is not expected to exceed 30,000 euros. The planned annual production capacity of 300,000 SAIC Volkswagen MEB plants will also be put into mass production in 6 months.
The LMC Automotive organization predicts that by 2025, Volkswagen will top the global electric vehicle sales list with an annual sales volume of 1.416 million units. This number is expected to be more than three times Tesla’s sales (410,200) by then.
At that time, the Audi brand headquarters, which is the core of the organizational structure of the “Car.Software” department of the Volkswagen Group, will play a role similar to the middle office, undertake the task of collecting and processing these massive user data, and provide the basis for decision-making for the development of autonomous driving software. .
2019 CES Asia Audi exhibited AI: ME concept Car
Future Auto Daily News
Volkswagen Group ’s senior vice president of autonomous driving, Alexander Hisinger, said, “We will continue to use the synergy among the Group ’s brands to reduce the cost of autonomous vehicles, high-performance computers and sensors.” Coincidentally, the autonomous driving subsidiary AID (Autonomous Intelligent Driving GmbH) established in 2017 by Audi also once played a key role as a supplier of autonomous driving technology for various brands of Volkswagen.
This auto manufacturer with an annual sales revenue of more than 1.9 trillion yuan chose to concentrate and firmly grasp autonomous driving and software R & D resources in its own hands. Complete control of the data may be an important reason why the Volkswagen Group is trying to control the Audi brand 100%.
Volkswagen Group is Audi ’s largest shareholder and holds approximately 99.64% of the subscribed capital of the Audi brand. At the end of February this year, Volkswagen Group announced plans to acquire 0.36% of the freely-tradable shares of the Audi brand, and has now submitted a request to the Audi brand to transfer a minority stake.
However, the traditional car companies turned to enter the software development, and indeed faced higher industry “barriers.” Industry insiders said to the Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) that the automotive industry that attaches great importance to safety requires PPM (Parts Per Million, the defect rate per million products) to maintain single digits, but the software industry ’s PPM can be as high as several thousand.
Although the latter has high safety risks, this is a prerequisite for the rapid development of autonomous vehicles and an important reason for Tesla to grow to the head. At the intersection of transformation, can Volkswagen Group’s auto veterans in the autonomous driving business be able to crossIt is still the key to make the right choice among contradictions in the industry.
——————————
If you want to discuss Volkswagen ’s software business with us, please add the author WeChat (15201066825) to communicate, and please add the company and position.
Future Auto Daily ID: auto-time