On April 28, CARIAD, a software company owned by the Volkswagen Group, officially established its subsidiary in China, the first overseas subsidiary after CARIAD's European headquarters.
What are the main tasks of the CARIAD China team?
Promote software product development for local consumers, including the development of a unified and scalable new software platform, advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving, and next-generation intelligent and connected functions with headquarters.
From the perspective of "software platform", "advanced driver assistance system", "automatic driving", etc., we can get a glimpse of Volkswagen's strategic intention to establish the CARIAD China team.
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BOYFRIEND:
Three steps to build a Volkswagen software platform
One photo was once widely circulated:
Since 2019, a total of 20,000 pure electric vehicles based on the Volkswagen MEB platform Volkswagen ID.3 have continuous software problems, but at that time, it was impossible to solve the problem through OTA, and the existing software defects could only be repaired by manually brushing the machine.
In addition to being pointed out to have solved the problem in the most clumsy way, the massive recall also affected its delivery plans for other models in 2020.
In addition, the Golf 8 has also fallen into a state of "delay" in production due to software problems, which has triggered dissatisfaction among the Volkswagen Group's unions and dealers.
It can be said that before the establishment of CARIAD, volkswagen was deeply stung by "software".
Last November, Volkswagen GROUP CEO Diess conducted a deep reflection on Volkswagen's software capabilities.
"We have very little software capability so far, the software will determine who gets how much market share, in the new competition, the competition becomes fierce, the market share is redistributed, and the success of the past is not important for the electrification of the brand," he said.
Obviously, having software capabilities is the cornerstone of brand strategic transformation for the public, and it is also an indispensable chip for survival in the future market.
Diess believes that autonomous driving will truly change the automotive industry. Compared to electrification, the real game-changers are software and autonomous driving.
CARIAD was formerly known as Car.Software, the software division of the Volkswagen Group, which was established in 2020, and integrated the decentralized IT divisions of its 12 brands into the new division car.software.
As the software business strengthened, the Car.Software division became an independent software company, CARIAD, led by Diess himself.
CARIAD currently employs approximately 5,000 engineers and developers worldwide, bringing together top engineers from within the Volkswagen Group.
CARIAD's main task is to build a unified software platform for all the Group's brands, including a unified and scalable architecture to support volkswagen's self-developed operating system VW. OS and connect to volkswagen cloud VW. AC。
According to the plan, by 2025, the software developed by CARIAD will account for 30% of the use of all products of the public, and this proportion will increase to 60% in 2030, and core functions such as artificial intelligence, big data, and security systems must be 100% self-developed.
To do this, CARIAD will iterate on its own software system in three steps:
The first version is E 1.1 (2022), which enables meb platform-based models to be updated via OTA. At present, Volkswagen ID.4, Skoda Enyaq and other models have achieved this version;
The second version is E 1.2 (2023-2024), which will create an intelligent cockpit system based on the Android open source system, which will support the third-party application market for the first time; and develop corresponding auxiliary driving systems to achieve related functions on Audi, Porsche brand and other models;
The third version, E 2.0 (2025), will serve as a common software platform for all Volkswagen Group models and will support L4 level autonomous driving software.
At the same time, the Volkswagen Group will continue to invest in CARIAD with an annual intensity of 2-2.5 billion euros, compared with the Volkswagen Group's cumulative research and development last year of up to 15.6 billion euros, CARIAD accounts for more than one-sixth of the Volkswagen Group's R&D, which is evident in its importance.
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CARIAD establishes a local software team in China
Respond quickly to demand
As the first single-market strategic plan outside the European headquarters, Volkswagen undoubtedly sets the Chinese market as an outpost of Volkswagen's software strategy.
Since we are the vanguard of this battle, we must first test the thinking and planning of "them".
Who are "they" referring to?
The CARIAD China team is led by One of the CO-founders of CARIAD, Evergreen.
As a veteran of Volkswagen, this year marks Evergreen's 32nd year at Volkswagen, where he worked on vehicle measurement analysis and chassis development at Wolfsburg, where he was also responsible for planning and establishing the Group's unified product range of expandable electrical and electronic architectures, and later at CARIAD's headquarters in Germany.
Also partnered with Evergreen is Sun Wei, CTO of CARIAD's Chinese subsidiary.
He joined Volkswagen China in 2017 as Senior Director of R&D for Smart Mobility, during which time he developed the Max Charging App and the Hefei Pilot Robotaxi Service Platform.
Today, CARIAD's China subsidiary has assembled a team of 600 people by integrating cutting-edge talent from the Volkswagen Group (China), the Volkswagen brand and the Audi brand, and is expected to double the number of people to 1,200 by the end of 2023.
So, what will CARIAD do in China? What are the plans?
According to the plan, the CARIAD China team will iterate the software system in three steps:
Mass-produced software platform (second half of 2022), the Chinese team will lead the Chinese ID based on the MEB platform. Family of OTA features;
High-end software platform (2023-2024), the Chinese team will support the Advanced Infotainment System based on the Android open source system and the advanced driver assistance system, which are China-specific applications of the two major systems, for Audi and Porsche models based on the PPE platform;
New, unified software platform (2025), a software platform for all models of the Volkswagen Group in the future, supporting Volkswagen's self-developed operating system VW. OS and with VW. AC Cloud Interconnect. The China team will be responsible for 70% of the R&D work, and it is estimated that 40 million vehicles worldwide will be equipped with Volkswagen's unified software platform by 2030.
It can be seen that the CARIAD China team and CARIAD's German headquarters have similar development plans for intelligence.
Although the two sides parted ways in the early stage, they ended up on the same path, and even the Chinese team occupied a large number of dominance.
From 0 to 1, the CARIAD China team proposed to integrate a complete set of development processes, methods and tools into the "Forward" product development process with a complete set of development processes, methods and tools to form CARIAD's concept of measuring new product development:
O (Originality)
I (Attraction)
C (Vehicle Continuity)
Sun Wei said that the PMT platform allows engineers to seamlessly switch between automotive operating system platform development, vehicle application development, and cloud service development through more than 50 customization and self-developed tools, and achieve a certain degree of automation to enhance efficiency.
Forward will use a more agile rolling product innovation planning and R&D approach on a quarterly basis.
In the first quarter of 2022, the CARIAD China team came up with more than 80 innovative ideas, selected six applications covering different areas such as advanced driver assistance, smart cockpits, remote services and infrastructure, and will further develop these applications over the next 3 to 6 months.
At the press conference, Sun Wei showed one of the functions of Forward - Outfit of the day, through the camera located in the rearview mirror to obtain the user's current wear, to achieve the desktop theme, mood lights, greetings, music in the vehicle cockpit to match the user.
This feature is the user experience application design and development software independently developed by the CARIAD China team - "Rainbow Composer".
Rainbow arrangers are also able to achieve user "personalized touchpoints" in specific scenarios including mood lights, air conditioning, seat settings, artificial intelligence, and entertainment information.
The logic behind this is that the UNIFIED, scalable, future-proof electrical and electronic architecture that the CARIAD China team is developing, as well as the VW on top of it. Os's software operating system platform.
Through the underlying architecture, operating system combined with domain controllers, to meet the needs of users like playing Lego, play a wonderful imagination, and make smart cars more interesting.
At the end of the conference, the CARIAD China team demonstrated the development of a smart interconnection solution based on China's smart interconnection infrastructure and data compliance requirements - V2X.
It is understood that CARIAD has opened three functions and deployed them in the latest Audi models on the Chinese market:
Traffic Light Information (TLI): It will provide drivers with traffic light information accurate to the second on the driving road, and give recommended speed based on traffic light information at the intersection in front of them to ensure the passage of vehicle green waves. Owners of some Audi models have been able to obtain all the traffic light information in the city.
Hazard Warning (LHW): Based on C-V2X vehicle networking technology has implemented six different use scenarios, taking "accident warning" as an example, when a vehicle with this function encounters a traffic accident, the vehicle will send relevant warnings to surrounding vehicles in real time through the C-V2X protocol to broadcast, and over-the-horizon prompts the vehicles behind.
Hazard Information Alert (LHI): Based on network technology, it provides users with more specific and timely information on the dangers of the surrounding roads. Through Volkswagen's unique cloud control platform, traffic hazard information can be instantly captured by all vehicles equipped with this function on the road and sent to the display instruments of the relevant vehicles in an orderly manner, so that customers can be informed of real-time dangerous traffic events up to 40 kilometers in advance.
Sun Wei said that V2X products make full use of the latest C-V2X communication standards, and real-time stream data processing and analysis technology, and will be combined with the Volkswagen cloud platform and other technical systems in the future, so that bicycle intelligence can be efficiently extended to the network intelligence of vehicle-road collaboration, vehicle-vehicle collaboration and vehicle-cloud collaboration, and further open up with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to achieve a full range of intelligent travel experience.
As early as 2019, Audi China's R&D team conducted l4 autonomous driving and connected vehicle related demonstrations of passenger car formations in a closed section of the Yanchong Expressway in Beijing, covering 7 highway driving scenarios, including C-V2X vehicle-to-road coordination signals such as speed limit warning, road construction warning, key reminder of traffic jam in front, and high-priority vehicle concession (such as ambulance), the vehicle automatically performs corresponding speed adjustment or lane change overtaking and other actions without driver intervention.
It can be seen that whether it is the previous R&D planning of Volkswagen Group for vehicle-road collaboration, or the software-defined intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving now, the first shot of Volkswagen Group's software strategy overseas has been hit in China.
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Is it wise to choose China?
Today, almost no global car company can ignore the Chinese market, not only because China is a huge consumer market, but more importantly, China's digital transformation strategy has been able to bring opportunities to the world.
The Chinese market is far more enthusiastic about intelligence than other markets.
According to McKinsey, more than 80 percent of Chinese consumers believe that autonomous driving and smart connected features are very important to them.
Of course, Volkswagen is not the first to realize the importance of the Transformation Strategy of the Chinese Market, even if it is a century-old BMW, we can always see BMW CEO Chiptzer often hangs on the lips of keywords such as "home in China" and "China first" that show determination.
Luerman, CTO of Volkswagen Anhui, said: "Chinese local brands continue to rise and strengthen. Five years ago, foreign brands were more competitive in the market, but now there are huge changes, and Chinese local brands are constantly rising, both in quantity and quality."
Dies believes that the most urgent issue facing Volkswagen at present is to expand its business in China and develop the software division CARIAD. The Chinese market accounts for about 40% of Volkswagen's global sales, but in the Chinese electric vehicle market, Volkswagen lags far behind local competitors in terms of intelligence and other aspects, and last year did not achieve its goal of selling 80,000 to 100,000 electric vehicles in China.
In addition, different markets also have different needs for intelligence.
Taking the vehicle and machine system as an example, the dependence on third-party APP in different regions is different, which requires manufacturers to adapt accordingly according to localized needs.
In terms of high-end automatic driving, the road conditions and traffic regulations in different regions are very different, which also requires car companies to make localization research and development and improvement.
On April 20, Diess announced the latest strategic area layout of Volkswagen Group, covering brand, vehicle, technology platform, software, battery, automatic driving and other fields, such as power batteries, Volkswagen Anhui will jointly carry out localization research and development for a new generation of high-density, high-capacity and high-performance batteries with Guoxuan Hi-Tech.
Luhrman said: "The traditional path was to develop product prototypes in Germany and bring concepts and models to China to achieve landing.
Now, we are taking a very different path, we hope to take China as the core, develop some local models that meet the needs of Chinese consumers and local needs, and we hope to bring such elements to Europe to meet the design needs of European related products."
Of course, a large reason for localization of research and development also includes the legal and regulatory requirements of different countries at the level of software systems, such as data, intellectual property rights, road regulations and so on.
To put it simply, the reason why foreign brands have chosen the Chinese market as the first shot of strategic transformation is nothing more than the circular logic of "promoting localization research and development in the blue ocean of the market".
From the recent BBA successively unveiled the latest "futures" products for electrification, and then to the latest products of The Japanese Sanjie Toyota, Honda and Nissan that have been listed/pre-sold for electrification, we can see a very clear situation between car companies and consumers:
For traditional car companies, the situation of electrification transformation is becoming more and more urgent.
For consumers, after the fierce struggle between car companies, consumers have more room to be picky about products.