Other than electric cars: what will change the world for the automotive industry are smart cars. Here is revealed the future according to the number one of Volkswagen Herbert Diess. And it’s a groundbreaking stance because the top manager who is shedding the skin of the world‘s largest carmaker essentially says that the move to battery electric (EV) vehicles, which has yet to be backed up by actual sales, is not true. target.
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In fact, the most important target is smart cars. “Autonomous driving will really change our industry like nothing else before,” Diess said speaking in Munich ahead of the official opening of the auto show, adding that the transition to electrified cars was “fairly easy” in comparison. . “The real gamechanger is software and autonomous driving,” says Diess whose comments come as environmental pressure on the automotive sector is mounting, with the European Commission proposing in July a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035. .
And it is an announcement that comes just when the German giant concretizes the ACCELERATE strategy, that of making the electric mobility of the future accessible to an ever wider audience. Now it turns out that already in 2025, therefore two years earlier than initially planned, a vehicle of the ID family (a compact with 234 HP and range of 400 kilometers) of segment B will be launched on the market. ? It should be between 20,000 and 25,000 euros. Let’s talk about a real revolution and the ID. LIFE is the forerunner of this car: the concept car combines sustainability and digitalization, thus orienting itself on the needs of urban mobility of the younger generations. The machine uses natural raw materials and recycled materials, from rubber to real wood coating to the ArtVelours Eco finish in recycled PET. And then the interior is all about digitization: cameras instead of rear-view mirrors, smartphone integration, touch surfaces on the steering wheel.
But Diess’s announcement is also important because it comes after the announcement by Greenpeace and the German environmental NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) to take legal action against German carmakers, including Volkswagen, who do not step up their policies to address the climate change. Diess therefore not only aims to overtake Tesla and transform Volkswagen into the world‘s largest electric vehicle seller by 2025. The manager at the helm of the Wolfsburg carmaker also wants to make software services for autonomous cars a key pillar of the future business of the car. group, which is why Volkswagen bought self-driving software startup Argo AI, a competitor of Alphabet’s Waymo.
Traditional automakers and tech companies have poured billions of dollars over the past decade to realize their driverless car vision, but robotaxis remain elusive due to the technical and regulatory hurdles it requires. “By 2030 about 85% of our business is made up of cars, private cars, privately owned, shared rental cars. And about 15% of mobility should be shuttles, mobility as a service,” Diess concluded. .
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