Volkswagen has said that it plans to invest USD 4 billion by 2025 on development of digital businesses and products. These will include a cloud computing-based platform which will be used to connect vehicles and customers for services like car sharing.
The company said that it was working on a new software operating system, which will be known as “vw.OS.” and will be integrated in VW brand electric cars from 2020 onwards. The new models will have a totally new electronic architecture that will facilitate autonomous driving functions.
According to a statement Volkswagen made, instead of having 70 different sensors and controllers which operate independently in each vehicle, the new cars will have the new proprietary software operating system which will connect the various sensors. Thus, the information obtained by the parking sensor will be readily available and linked to the steering, brakes, and high-definition maps so that a vehicle can park itself once an onboard camera identifies a free parking space. It is also easier to do over-the-air software updates for cars if the operating system is designed in-house, rather using third-party software that is supplied by the different vendors who supply the various sensors.
VW is expecting to raise about 1 billion euros in sales by 2025 through the new digital services including car-sharing, parking and parcel delivery services. Products that will be offered include embedding of smartphone applications like “We Park” into car infotainment systems and connecting vehicles with vendors like Amazon whose delivery staff will be able to use an app to open cars so they can be used as delivery locations.
Volkswagen also has plans to launch a car-sharing business, called “We Share,” in Berlin using a fleet of 2,000 electric cars in the second quarter of 2019. It will be first launched in core European markets and selected cities in the United States and Canada.
