Volkswagen’s driverless cars are expected to be on the road in 50 cities around the world by 2030. The Group has really big plans for autonomous driving, even from a financial point of view.
Carsten Intra, head of Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge (commercial vehicles), spoke about the brand’s plans for the coming years in an interview with Automobilwoche magazine. A new strategy called Grip 2030 is being set in motion to make electric and autonomous vehicles a separate business segment and bring billions of euros in profits to Wolfsburg. The cornerstone of this shift will be a vehicle that rides in camouflage and with a bunch of sensors in the body of an electric Volkswagen ID.Buzz, but in series form it will not be an evolution of that, but rather a special vehicle offered to robo-taxi services and transport companies.
In its final form, it will have a spacious interior for at least four people and their luggage, but whether it will have a steering wheel is an interesting question, according to Intra, about which no final decision has been made yet. At the moment, development is in the conceptual phase and the manufacturer intends to take a “big leap forward” instead of simply adapting the ID.Buzz to the purpose of autonomous driving.
The car, being developed with Argo AI, has several lidars of different sizes, radar sensors and can see ahead at a distance of four hundred meters in its test form. The first live deployment without a driver is planned for 2025 in Hamburg, with the service to be expanded to fifty cities in Europe and North America by 2030. Before that date, this new business area should be profitable, said Michael Obrowski, CFO of the commercial vehicle division.
