In 2019, Volkswagen determined to create a automobile OS—how’s that going?
Aurich Lawson
In 2019, Volkswagen Group had a daring plan. After proving that it made sense to make use of a couple of widespread architectures to design a diverse vary of automobiles throughout a number of totally different manufacturers, it determined to use that very same method to software program. It set up a new division and moved your complete VW Group’s software program growth underneath that roof, with a mandate to create a brand new unified automotive working system for future VW Group EVs.
In truth, the division needed to work on three totally different programs concurrently. Referred to as E3 for end-to-end structure, E3 1.1 could be the software program to run on VW Group’s MEB platform for mass-market EVs. Vehicles utilizing this software program are actually on the highway, together with the VW ID.4, Audi This fall e-tron, and naturally, everybody’s favourite, ID. Buzz. E3 1.2 is destined for extra upmarket EVs from Audi and Porsche, utilizing the upcoming PPE platform. And that unified OS, referred to as E3 2.0, would present up mid-decade in a new, unified platform across the entire VW Group.
It hasn’t precisely gone easily. In 2020 VW changed Christian Senger as the pinnacle of the division—referred to as Automotive.Software program.Org, now referred to as CARIAD—with Dirk Hilgenberg. By 2022, issues with CARIAD’s growth and buggy software for the launch of the ID.3 and ID.4 EVs noticed VW Group fire its chairman, Herbert Diess, together with a number of reviews of delays to future group vehicles, together with the electric Porsche Macan. The division cost VW Group more than $2 billion final yr within the course of.
Nonetheless the fitting transfer
“The concept remains to be proper, however in fact, as you will have seen, we have gone via the storming part, a norming part, now , having to ship within the performing part, however it’s what you’ll count on,” mentioned Hilgenberg, CARIAD’s CEO.
“So, sure, that was the fitting resolution, taken on very daring and really decisive, whereas additionally taking into consideration the massive backpack on our shoulders. The duty was at a time on the MEB, what we name now the 1.1 software program on the ID, and we now have gone via these teething issues—the platform stability, with the rollouts, with OTA working fantastic now with the brand new updates, pulling automobiles into the workshops, ensuring they get upgraded with minimal invasive influence to the client. So, classes discovered in regards to the model aspect in addition to CARIAD,” Hilgenberg instructed me.
Then there’s E3 1.2. “The opposite large bundle in our backpack is the Premium Platform Digital [PPE], which is being developed as we converse, and we’re, I might say, within the ultimate stretch; we are able to see the end line,” he instructed me.
E3 1.2 appears like fairly a step up from E3 1.1. “There’s way more complexity in there, in fact, for premium automobiles with extra performance, however once more, additionally wanting into over-the-air updates, sensor belts massively enhanced—which shall be essential to deploy the driving force help perform,” Hilgenberg defined.
“Extra security for the client, extra catering for knowledge, which we are able to use for not solely crowd knowledge but additionally for providers, that are anticipating—, the highway has a curve, there may be fog there developing, there is a large accident—so with related automobiles you carry info again into the car. The car, the companion, tells you, ‘Hey, you bought to watch out,’ the driving force help system says, ‘You bought to take over you must be alert.’ So, it’s the evolutionary roadmap on the ADAS stack, actually materializing via 1.2 another way,” he instructed me.