Published: July 7, 2016
While all the other companies are collaborating with each other to develop connected car platforms, Volkswagen also took the leap and had decided to come together with LG with a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on R&D related to a connected car platform to be developed “over the coming years”. The joint venture will enable vehicles to communicate with external devices.
Automakers have been forming partnerships in recent years, as the race to develop self-driving cars has created need for more sophisticated components. Apart from that, LG Electronics, along with affiliates LG Display Co Ltd and LG Innotek Co Ltd, has identified the auto industry as a new growth driver and has been pushing to grow new businesses amid continued struggles for its mobile phones division.
The partnership is a simple move to develop technologies that bring together the connected car and the smart home so that drivers are able to control and monitor smart devices in their homes such as lights, security systems and domestic appliances.
In a recent statement, Thomas Form, Volkswagen’s head of electronics and vehicle research, called LG a strong partner and said the pair will work to integrate smart home solutions into Volkswagen vehicles. It seems that with this move LG and Volkswagen are both aggressively trying to get into connected cars segment.
Richard Choi, head of LG Cloud Center, said:
LG Electronics and Volkswagen are teaming up to develop the next generation of connected car platform that allows wide integration with smart home services and adoption of open IoT connectivity technologies. We think LG’s expertise in smart technology together with Volkswagen’s leadership in the automotive sector will revolutionise the way drivers interact with their vehicles.
However, it is evident that these two companies are talking about goals that are achievable in the near future. They did not talk about automation or making the car itself more intelligent as it pertains to the task of actually driving. The goal is to add intelligence to the ecosystem that surrounds the car, and plugging it into infotainment as well as the smart home.
South Korea’s LG Electronics and German carmaker Volkswagen have already demonstrated some prototypes of this kind of tech in action at CES this year.
