Volkswagen aims to have accident-free vehicles by 2050

The next generation of Volkswagen’s driverassistance software could be capable of avoiding all car crashes, Volkswagen’s head of strategy has said.

“We want to have no more accidents by 2050,” Michael Jost told journalists in Berlin.

Jost anticipates that Volkswagen’s new operating system, which will be launched in the ID.3 electric car (EV), will be continually improved by more refined algorithms.

“How quickly can data and algorithms improve? Our customers should benefit from deep learning every week, and every day,” Jost said.

“We are moving from being a device company to being a software company,” he said.

The Volkswagen brand alone anticipates selling 1.5-million EVs by 2025, while the Volkswagen Group (including Audi, Seat, Skoda, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti) will crank out 75 new EVs over the next nine years.

The higher-end Volkswagen models will already be equipped with a full sensor suite, including LiDars, radars, analogue cameras and ultra-sonic sensors, and continually upgrading the software could make them function at their peak.

Jost insisted the ID.3’s launch timeline has not changed, in spite of media reports of glitches in its software, though the Covid-19 pandemic could push it back.

“We are not yet at 100%,” Volkswagen’s board member for electromobility, Thomas Ulbrich, admitted.

“It is normal that there are still technical tasks to be done shortly before market launch.”

Its pricing will be on a par with Volkswagen’s own combustion-engined cars, landing from only €24,000 in Germany after green subsidies have been subtracted.

The ID.3 hatchback won’t be available in SA but the ID.4 compact SUV will arrive here in 2022, becoming the first EV from VW to go on sale locally.

THE HIGHER-END VOLKSWAGEN MODELS WILL ALREADY BE EQUIPPED WITH A FULL SENSOR SUITE