More than two years ago, a news article of "Volkswagen intends to acquire Huawei's self-driving division" flooded the network overnight. Due to Huawei's deep mass base in the mainland, for a time, not only industry-related automotive and technology media, but also almost all platforms and portals have a heated discussion on this matter.
Two months later, the dust cleared, and the "acquisition incident" that was originally said by a group of peers disappeared, but it made me remember a very unChina name: CARIAD.
CARIAD is the new automotive software company owned by the Volkswagen Group, and its origin can also be described as a series of twists and turns.
In the era of new energy, software began to play a more important role in automobiles. In response to this new change, in 2020 Volkswagen established the Car.Software Organisation Automotive Software Division. As the Volkswagen Group ACCELERATE accelerates its strategy, volkswagen's need for software becomes more and more urgent as it "defines and drives cars with software", and car.software organisations are transformed and CARIAD is born.
Recently, CARIAD, which has a very different name from China, has done a very Chinese thing - on April 28, 2022, CARIAD released its China strategy and officially established a Chinese branch.
Why China?
In the past two years, Volkswagen has encountered many troubles in software.
In September 2019, Volkswagen's 8th-generation Golf, which was supposed to be released at the Frankfurt International Motor Show, was postponed due to the fact that its software system was extremely vulnerable to hacking.
In May 2020, the eighth generation of Golf, which struggled to start mass production deliveries, was suspended due to a failure of the emergency call system "e-call" software.
In March 2021, Volkswagen's new pure electric series ID. The family ushered in the first large-scale software update, and who would have thought that pure electric ID. The first big update actually had to be performed back to the 4S store, not the OTA.
April 2020, and who would have thought that ID. The much-anticipated 3.0 OTA for car owners took 12 hours to complete.
Friends who are interested in these bizarre stories can click on our previous article "Volkswagen ID. The strongest OTA in history, just need to change the battery and wait another 12 hours" Learn more.
There are too many problems that need to be solved, which may also be the biggest driving force for CARIAD to rush to expand its territory and actively recruit troops.
It is worth noting that the China branch is CARIAD's first branch in the world after Europe.
As for why China, at the press conference, CARIAD China CEO Changqing said so.
"China is currently one of the most dynamic and promising mobility markets in the world."
"China is leading the digital transformation of the mobility industry."
Behind the two sentences, which are concise and concise, reflect volkswagen's positive judgment on China's pure electric vehicle market, demand, environment, and talents, and these should be the best explanations for the above problems.
Three-step platform goal
For the modern software industry, the top-level software architecture platform is the foundation of all software systems. This truth is no exception in the field of automotive software.
Changqing mentioned at yesterday's press conference that although CARIAD China Branch has not been established for a long time, the development architecture platform planning for the next few years has been very clear.
In the next three years, CARIAD will gradually achieve volkswagen's new unified software platform goal from low to high in a "three-step" rhythm.
The first is the volume production software platform, which is mainly aimed at the MEB pure electric platform widely used on current Volkswagen models.
Detailed to the specific model, it actually refers to the ID of Volkswagen. clan. The volume platform will enable remote online updates of software on specific models, known as OTAs. In the future, the CARIAD China team will take the lead in taking charge of ID. The OTA update for the family series products in China, the first update led by the China team, is expected to be completed in the second half of this year.
Next is the upcoming premium premium software platform, which is primarily aimed at the PPE platform.
The PPE platform is the Volkswagen Group's pure electric platform for high-end cars, and the Audi A6 e-tron, Audi A6 Avant e-tron, Audi Q6 e-tron, and the rumored Porsche Macan EV will all be based on this platform. The premium software platform will support advanced infotainment systems based on Android open source systems and advanced driver assistance systems, as well as remote online updates on select Audi and Porsche brand models. The CARIAD China team plans to launch the premium software platform within two years.
The purpose of the previous two steps is for volkswagen group's new unified &scalable unified scalable software platform.
The new platform will support Volkswagen's self-developed operating system VW. OS, and connect to volkswagen cloud VW. AC, and applies to all future brands of the Volkswagen Group. The software platform will be pre-powered with L4 level autonomous driving technology and is scheduled to be launched around 2025.
Landing products are here
If the platform determines the height of the software, then the application determines the specific experience.
Dr. Wei Sun, CTO of CARIAD China, was very impressed with his understanding of in-vehicle application software.
"Innovations in in-vehicle software should not be repeated for mobile applications," he said.
Nowadays, many car companies have introduced a certain software into the car machine as a highlight in OTAs.
We may have focused too much on "I can finally use this app directly on the car machine", but ignored "whether the app that works well on the phone is still easy to port to the car machine".
Seriously think about it, although the car machine screen is similar to the mobile phone screen to some extent, the car is after all a lot of experience, function and expansion ability that the mobile phone does not have, so the car also needs the real "car native" application.
In this regard, the CARIAD China team brought two examples of "car native" applications at this conference.
CARIAD China's team refers to the first application as "OOTD."
That's right, the Outfit of the Day you have in mind right now. However, the object of OOTD here refers to the car.
Through the AI smart camera on the smart rearview mirror in the car, the system will automatically perceive the color and style of the clothes you are wearing that day, and create different atmospheres in the car according to different outfits.
The ambience includes a desktop theme for the machine screen, the color of the ambient strip, a launch greeting, and in-car music.
My first reaction when I saw this app was to think of the "let the theme color of the mobile app automatically change with the color of the phone case" that was circulated on the Internet before.
This idea on the phone may be a joke that everyone laughs at, and when it is put on the car, this thing has more operability. Moreover, every day when you get on the bus, you can have a new atmosphere to match the wear, which seems to be a very good thing.
The other is the V2X application.
At present, the CARIAD China team has developed three sets of intelligent networking functions, namely traffic signal information (TLI), hazard warning (LHW), and hazard information prompt (LHI).
The traffic light information function provides the driver with traffic light information accurate to the second on the road ahead.
At the same time, it is also possible to give a recommended speed based on this information to ensure "green wave traffic", which is what we often call a green light.
The hazard warning is a function that broadcasts the vehicle's own state. When a vehicle with this function encounters a traffic accident, the vehicle will send an early warning message to the surrounding vehicles through the C-V2X protocol, and the over-the-horizon reminds the rear vehicle to pay attention to safe passage.
The Hazard Alert feature captures traffic hazard information on the road through vehicles with this feature, shares it in real time, and displays it on the dashboards of other vehicles nearby. And this "nearby" refers to a range of 40 kilometers.
More important than the concept, these functions mentioned above are the V2X functions that are really landed, and at present, in some of the latest Audi models in China, these three functions have been deployed and applied.
Landing, landing, landing, important things to say three times.
Perhaps there are many friends who pay attention to new energy vehicles like me, and in the past two years, I have eaten too many PPT pie drawn by manufacturers, and my stomach is unbearable. In contrast, "landing" has become my favorite word to see during this time. At the same time, the realization of short-term goals has also become an important chip for my trust in the long-term planning of car companies.
When it comes to long-term planning, CARIAD hopes to have more than 40 million vehicles equipped with the software technology stack it has developed by 2030.
But before this big goal, I pay more attention to the ID in the second half of this year. Family OTA updates, high-end software platform within two years, unified scalable software platform for 25 years...
I hope that CARIAD China can complete the set goals step by step, and I hope that the story of "software OTA also comes with hardware low-voltage battery upgrades" is just a story and will not happen in reality again.
And Volkswagen can also do what is mentioned in the opening credits of the conference, Code The Future, "reinventing mobility."
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