Written by | Little Devil
With the acceleration of electrification transformation, the Volkswagen Group has also changed their long-standing motto of "hardware first", and software has become the core and driving force of transformation for Volkswagen now.
In fact, Volkswagen has realized the importance of software since the first ID. model was officially launched, and Volkswagen Chief Development Officer Thomas Ulbrich once said: "The world of the past was very simple, the Beetle was just hardware. Our ID. models are more about software than hardware." And this evolution will continue at a much faster pace.
In order to support this rapid evolution and ultimately achieve the goal of software-defining and driving cars, Volkswagen established a dedicated division for automotive software in 2020 – Car.SoftwareOrganisation. Last March, CarSoftware officially changed its name to CARIAD.
As the largest single market of Volkswagen Group, China is also a relatively mature market for the development of electric vehicles, which should be highly valued by Volkswagen Group. Unsurprisingly, in April this year, Volkswagen officially announced the establishment of CARIAD's Chinese subsidiary, opening CARIAD's first layout outside Europe.
At present, CARIAD's main responsibility in the Volkswagen Group is to build a unified software platform for all Volkswagen brands, including a unified and scalable architecture, support VW.OS, the operating system independently developed by Volkswagen, and connect to the Volkswagen Cloud VW.AC. In addition, it is responsible for developing the vehicle's digital capabilities, including ADAS, standardized infotainment systems, software functions for connecting powertrains, chassis and charging technologies, new ecosystems for vehicles, and new digital business models.
According to Volkswagen's plan, after the establishment of CARIAD China subsidiary, Volkswagen will better improve the efficiency of interaction between the software team and the Chinese market, accelerate the rate of software upgrades, and bring consumers a more suitable localized functional experience.
In terms of work, CARIAD's Chinese subsidiary will complete the third year task. First, the Chinese subsidiary will provide localization support for the mass production (MEB platform vehicle) software platform to achieve software OTA upgrades for Chinese ID. family models, and the first update is expected to be launched in the second half of this year.
Second, support for high-end software platforms launched in the next two years, including PPE platforms. The platform will support infotainment systems based on Android open source systems and advanced driver assistance systems, as well as remote OTAs on some Audi and Porsche models, and the Chinese team is leading the development of China-specific applications of these two systems.
Third, support volkswagen's new, unified, scalable software platform (expected to be equipped with L4-level driving technology) around 2025, which will be suitable for all brands of the future group, support Volkswagen's self-developed operating system VW.OS, and will be connected to Volkswagen's cloud VW.AC.
Throughout the process, the Chinese team will lead and participate in 70% of the R&D work involving the new software platform technology stack and product line, including local R&D and adaptation. At the same time, the Chinese team will also develop a data backend that meets the data compliance requirements, that is, the Volkswagen Cloud VW.AC, and implement a series of intelligent interconnection services. If all goes well, more than 40 million Volkswagen Group vehicles worldwide are expected to be running the technology stack developed by CARIAD by 2030.
In terms of team size, CARIAD's China subsidiary currently has more than 600 employees, and Volkswagen plans to double the number of employees by the end of 2023, and more than 90% of them are local software talents. In the early stage, it will set up R&D forces in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Hefei, and eventually establish a national distributed R&D network.
In addition, the CARIAD China team also introduced some of the innovations they have made in their working methods and development processes. For example, in terms of accelerating R&D iteration, they have created a new set of software product development processes, and the "Forward" innovation action is one of the most representative.
To put it simply, the R&D team will output a series of innovative achievements in a quarterly rolling product innovation planning and R&D method, and then integrate the selected innovative products into the digital lifecycle management process and system of the electrical and electronic architecture product line in a timely manner, and finally introduce them to the market through the relevant models after completion of development.
This efficient development is possible because software engineers use a process management toolchain called PMT, which is an integrated platform of more than 50 custom and self-developed tools, one-stop support for multiple technology stacks and development languages in automotive software development, and a high degree of automation. In this way, engineers can seamlessly implement the same PMT platform, whether it is the development of the car operating system platform, the development of the car machine application, or the development of cloud services.
Through market observation and research, the CARIAD China team also summarized and formulated its own concept of measuring new product development - "OIC", that is, originality (O), attractiveness (I), and vehicle continuity (C).
THE CARIAD China team believes that only by creating impressive and attractive features can we really impress consumers, and the innovation of in-vehicle software should not repeat mobile applications, it needs to truly originate from the ability ecology of the car itself, and what they have to do is to create a real "car native" application.
It is reported that through the combination of new speed and new ideas, in the first "Forward" first action in the first quarter of 2022, the team proposed a total of more than 80 innovative ideas, of which 6 of the most market-promising applications were selected, covering different areas such as advanced driver assistance, intelligent cockpit, remote services and infrastructure, which will be further developed in the next 3 to 6 months.
The team specifically demonstrated two of these applications, "OOTD (Outfitoftheday)" and the smart interconnection solution, V2X.
OOTD is also known as "wearing", that is, when the driver sits in the car, the camera in the car can perceive the color of its clothing, and make all the digital elements in the car intelligently match with the clothes worn by the owner, including the color of the mood light, the theme desktop, greetings and music, etc., to bring users a more interesting new interactive experience.
V2X is based on three sets of intelligent networking functions developed by the team, namely Traffic Signal Information (TLI), Hazard Warning (LHW) and Hazard Information Alert (LHI). TLI will give recommended speeds based on traffic light information at the intersection in front of it to ensure the passage of green waves; LHW will send early warnings to the surrounding areas in the event of a traffic accident to prevent secondary rear-end collisions; LHI can let owners know in advance of real-time dangerous traffic events within a range of up to 40 kilometers, and these functions will appear in Volkswagen electric vehicles in the near future.
In the Chinese market, the traditional joint venture electric vehicle can not play a good market performance, in addition to the price factor, a large part of the reason is that the performance of the car software of these cars is too crotch, localization optimization is not in place, intelligent driving performance is not in place, this is not a problem of Volkswagen, but all traditional joint venture cars have not solved the problem.
Because China is Volkswagen's largest single market, Volkswagen has set up a Chinese software team to solve the problem of its own products, at least in terms of attitude, we see its sincerity to Chinese consumers, of course, the sales of Volkswagen electric vehicles also depend on the subsequent local optimization performance.
But personally believe that Volkswagen's action to establish a software subsidiary in China should also bring some enlightenment to other joint venture car companies, if you want to sell electric vehicles in China, then the local optimization work including application software, intelligent network connection, driving assistance, etc. must be taken seriously, after all, selling electric vehicles is not like the previous sale of fuel vehicles, there is no good user experience, only relying on the brand aura is difficult to be recognized by today's electric vehicle consumers, even volkswagen. 【END】