- The German automaker plans to develop most of the software needed for driverless cars in-house.
- Volkswagen will tentatively create the software alone, looking for positioning itself as the world’s second largest automaker.
In a recent turn of events in the automobile industry, leading automotive giant- Volkswagen has reportedly laid down its plans of developing most of the software needed for its self-driving, autonomous cars in-house, without any outsourcing or assistance in the methodology. Through this initiative, the company looks all decked up to challenge the software giant, Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
Although the company is looking forward to building the software on its own, it is not rejecting collaborations in different areas outright. However, Volkswagen is confident on its decision of making the bulk of the software on its own in the near future.
Markus Duesmann, Volkaswagen’s board member, in a statement reported that the company is planning to be on the same level as Google in software development for automobiles and the company is ready to accept the challenge for realizing this without the help or support of the tech giant. He further mentioned that the firm boasts of a size that allows it to collaborate within the organization initially.
Moreover, despite the speculations on collaborations and team ups with competitors, Volkswagen is so far planning to go solo, looking to secure a prominent position as the world’s second-largest automaker. The company has already bundled its software competence into a newly formed entity, Car.Software.Org, which takes into its portfolio of about 5,000 employees and develops VW.OS operating system.
Similar to the intrinsic efforts being taken up by Volkswagen for developing its own OS for autonomous cars, Daimler is also planning to debut in the market to compete with large tech firms like Amazon and Apple for building its patent operating software in the area of EVs.
Source Credit: https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/vw-plans-challenge-google-own-av-software