WOLFSBURG, Germany and
REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/
-- Volkswagen Group further strengthens its
capabilities in the development of automated driving (AD)
solutions. The Group's software company Car.Software Organisation
will collaborate with Microsoft to build a cloud-based Automated
Driving Platform (ADP) on Microsoft Azure and leverage its compute
and data capabilities to deliver automated driving experiences even
faster at global scale. With ADP running on Azure, Car.Software
Organisation will increase the efficiency of the development of
advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and AD functions for
passenger cars across Volkswagen Group brands. Volkswagen and
Microsoft have been strategic partners on the Volkswagen Automotive
Cloud since 2018, which will span all of Volkswagen's future
digital services and mobility offerings.
"As we transform Volkswagen Group into a digital mobility
provider, we are looking to continuously increase the efficiency of
our software development. We are building the Automated Driving
Platform with Microsoft to simplify our developers' work through
one scalable and data-based engineering environment. By combining
our comprehensive expertise in the development of connected driving
solutions with Microsoft's cloud and software engineering know-how,
we will accelerate the delivery of safe and comfortable mobility
services," said Dirk Hilgenberg, CEO
of the Car.Software Organisation.
"This is the next evolution of our foundational work with the
Volkswagen Group to enhance their transformation as a
software-driven mobility provider," said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Cloud +
AI at Microsoft. "The power of Microsoft Azure and its compute,
data and AI capabilities will enable Volkswagen to deliver secure
and reliable automated driving solutions to their customers
faster."
Build AD and ADAS solutions faster with one development
platform
ADAS and automated driving vehicles can help improve passenger
safety while reducing congestion and making mobility even more
comfortable. Building these solutions requires large-scale
computational capabilities. Petabytes of data from road and weather
conditions to obstacle detection and driver behavior need to be
managed every day for the training, simulation and validation of AD
functions. Machine learning algorithms that learn from billions of
real and simulated miles driven are key to connected driving
experiences.
Car.Software Organisation will address these challenges together
with Microsoft by simplifying the developer experience and
leveraging the "learnings from miles driven" through one database
comprising real traffic data from the Group's vehicles as well as
simulation data. Microsoft Azure compute, data and machine learning
services as well as Microsoft's know-how in agile software
development will enable one development environment for
Car.Software Organisation's developers globally. ADP will help
reduce the development cycles from months to weeks and efficiently
manage the huge amount of data. The companies will start working on
ADP immediately and are looking to continuously expand the
functional scope of the development platform.
Both companies intend to enable technology partners to build
tools and services that integrate with the platform to enhance the
creation of AD and ADAS solutions.
Volkswagen Group increases in-house development of software
in the car
The Volkswagen Group is driving forward the
digitalization of the car rapidly. By 2025, the Group will invest
around 27 billion euros in
digitalization and increase the proportion of in-house development
of software in the car to 60% from 10% today. Founded last year,
the Car.Software Organisation plays a key role in the
transformation of the Volkswagen Group toward a software-driven
mobility provider. It bundles and continuously expands the Group's
software competencies, including the development of
high-performance driving functions for passenger cars that will be
integrated into future models of Volkswagen Group's brands.
Deploy and operate ADAS and AD solutions with Volkswagen
Automotive Cloud
Since 2018, Volkswagen and Microsoft have been collaborating on the
Volkswagen Automotive Cloud (VW.AC), which is focused on
integrating all the digital services and mobility offerings
across the Group brands and models in the future. VW.AC's
engineering team, based in Seattle, has enabled data to be exchanged
between the vehicles and the cloud through Azure edge services. The
cloud connectivity is also enabling Volkswagen to deliver vehicle
updates and new features independently of the vehicle hardware to
continuously improve the customer experience.
The first VW.AC connected test fleets are expected to hit the
road in 2021. Production rollout is planned for 2022. Car.Software
Organisation will integrate ADP and VW.AC as the company moves
toward further integrating its software solutions, tools and
methods to empower its engineering teams, customers and partners
globally. With VW.AC, the AD and ADAS functions developed on top of
ADP can be tested, deployed and operated across the Group's vehicle
fleet.
About Car.Software Organisation
Car.Software
Organisation is an automotive software company in the
Volkswagen Group that bundles and further expands the Group's
software competencies to transform automotive mobility. Founded in
2020, it develops the leading tech stack for the automotive
industry with the mission to make the automotive experience safer,
more sustainable and more comfortable in a new way – for everyone,
everywhere. Around 4,000 engineers and developers around the world
are building a uniform software platform for all brands of
Volkswagen Group, which includes a unified architecture, an
operating system and automotive cloud. The new software platform
will first come to play at the end of 2024. In addition, it works
on outstanding digital automotive features, including AD and ADAS
solutions, one infotainment platform, software functions for
linking powertrains, chassis and charging technology as well as new
ecosystems and digital business models in and around the vehicle.
The Car.Software Organisation operates in software competence
centers in Wolfsburg, Ingolstadt, the area of Stuttgart, Berlin and Munich, as well as Seattle.
About Volkswagen Group
The Volkswagen Group, with its
headquarters in Wolfsburg, is one of the world's leading automobile
manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. The Group comprises twelve brands from
seven European countries: Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, SEAT,
ŠKODA, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Volkswagen
Commercial Vehicles, Scania and MAN. The passenger car portfolio
ranges from small cars all the way to luxury-class vehicles. Ducati
offers motorcycles. In the light and heavy commercial vehicles
sector, the products range from pick-ups to buses and heavy trucks.
Every weekday, 671.205 employees around the globe produce on
average 44,567 vehicles, are involved in vehicle-related services
or work in other areas of business. The Volkswagen Group sells its
vehicles in 153 countries.
In 2020, the total number of vehicles delivered to customers by
the Group globally was 9.31 million (2019: 10.97 million). Group
sales revenue in 2019 totaled EUR 252.6
billion (2018: EUR 235.8
billion). Earnings after tax in 2019 ended amounted to
EUR 14.0 billion (2018: EUR 12.2 billion).
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft)
enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud
and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every
person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corporation