Volkswagen wants to dethrone Tesla: what it means to partner with Bosch

VW’s software department, Cariad, and Bosch will work together to catch up with Tesla and Mercedes.

Cariad and German supplier Robert Bosch have partnered to develop advanced driver assistance and self-driving systems for consumer vehicles, the companies said.

Cariad and Bosch are looking to develop Level 2 systems for both urban and highway traffic to be installed on VW Group vehicles starting in 2023, the companies said. They will also develop Level 3 functionalities for hands-free driving on the highway.

SAE International defines Level 2 systems as those that provide the driver with steering and braking / acceleration support, while Level 3 systems are those that provide automatic driving under certain conditions while the driver is present.

Last year, VW turned its software operations into a Cariad brand, pledged to spend billions of dollars on digitization, and said it would look for new partners in space.

“Automatic management is the key to the future of our industry,” said Cariad CEO Dirk Hilgenberg. “This underscores our ambition to provide our customers with the best possible solutions as soon as possible.”

An interesting partnership

In a press release, Bosch said that 1,000 employees worldwide from both companies will be involved in the partnership “during peak hours”, and both companies are looking to recruit new employees as part of the project.

The companies said they would develop a “state-of-the-art standardized software platform” for “partial and highly automated driving” so that the platform could be used in all “privately used vehicle classes” sold by the VW Group. The components developed by the partnership will be available to be integrated into the vehicles of other car manufacturers, according to the press release.

“The best test ground for the development of automatic driving is road traffic. With the help of one of the largest fleets of connected vehicles in the world, we will gain access to a huge database, ”said Mathias Pillin, President of Bosch Cross-Domain Computing Solutions. “It simply came to our notice then.

“All our customers will benefit from this.”