Return to Page 1: VW Group’s new ‘super’ platform and e-transformation

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Soft Power

Software has two prongs – the in-car experience, and autonomous driving, both of which will be spearheaded by VW Group’s automotive software company, Cariad. Like SSP, the Group intends for all of its software to be based on one platform. Dubbed E³ 2.0, it will be a base operating system (OS) for all the Group’s vehicles. 

“Software plays the decisive role in the transformation from a pure car company to an integrated mobility group. By 2030, software – on the basis of automated driving – can become a major source of income in our industry”, said Cariad’s CEO Dirk Hilgenberg.

Most of it won’t be revolutionary, but a continuation and expansion of the software capabilities we see today – easier navigation, learning from smartphones, app integration, over the air updates. 

Where it gets truly futuristic is automated/autonomous driving. Diess says SSP and E³ 2.0 will allow Level 4 ‘mind off’ autonomy, i.e. driver lets the car do all the driving. Allowing that is not just the on-board software for self-driving – a staggeringly expensive and more difficult to achieve goal than a certain Mr Musk thought – but also the tech (‘Car-to-X’) that allows cars to ‘talk’ to each other, and their environment. 

VW does see a payoff, obviously: It sees €1.2 trillion to be made in software by 2030, increasing the take from cars alone by one third.

What does that mean for you? More complexity in the car, but also more features, and eventually the ability for the car to drive itself. But with carmakers getting into the ‘everything as a service’ game, you can expect to pay a subscription (which is where the money above comes from) with your car to access those services, like BMW and Tesla have already done. 

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Prune Juice

There seems little doubt that this is the right path to take, and VW’s own latest sales figures echo as much: In July 2021 its worldwide BEV deliveries have more than doubled (to 170,939) with PHEV deliveries tripled (171,300), with sales of the VW ID.4 and ID.3 leading the way.

But there will be a price to pay for this, as we see more and more conventional cars dropped from the model lines.

Like Daimler (which owns Mercedes-Benz), the switch away from combustion engines will result in the pruning of niche models with low sales volume. In crude terms, we expect anything that’s not an SUV to be in the extinction danger zone: Audi has already announced there will be no successor to its A1 Sportback compact hatch, the VW Scirocco already stopped production years back, and the Touran MPV could be next on the chopping block. 

What does the future hold, then? All electric models, naturally, but fewer choices for the niche customer and perhaps a more homogenous product mix for mainstream brands such Seat, Skoda and VW, at least. But that’s the price to pay to be able to have the car drive itself home at the push of a button – besides the subscription fee, of course.

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