Volkswagen is strengthening its Car.Software organization with its Group responsibility for in-car software. Starting January 1, 2020, the Car.Software organization will operate as an in-dependent business unit.
As a Group company, the organization will centralize the associates and subsidiaries within the Group that develop car software and software for the digital ecosystems. Initially, around 3,000 digital experts from the software-related associates and subsidiaries will be grouped together in this unit. By 2025, it plans to have more than 10,000 digital experts in the organization.
In addition to integrating the associates and subsidiaries, the goal is to win skilled professionals from the Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi and Porsche brands for a transfer to the Car.Software organization. Volkswagen aims to boost the in-house share of car software development from the current figure of less than 10 percent to at least 60 percent by 2025.
The Car.Software organization will play a key role in achieving this goal. The organization will develop cross-brand software in five domains: Connected Car & Device Platform, Intelligent Body & Cockpit, Automated Driving, Vehicle Motion & Energy and Digital Business & Mobility Services. The objective is to establish one uniform software architecture in the Group and bring together parallel development paths in the brands.
The domains will cover the development work on one standard vehicle operating system “vw.os” for all Group vehicles and their connection to the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud, a standardized infotainment platform, all assistance systems including highly automated driving functions such as a motorway or parking garage pilot in cars for end customers, software functions for connecting the drive system, chassis and charging technology, and ecosystems for all of the brands’ mobility services and digital business models.
The Car.Software organization intends to invest over EUR 7 billion in its tasks and projects by 2025. Having a uniform software architecture will enable Volkswagen to generate sizable economies of scale in the Group, substantially reducing per-vehicle software costs across all brands.
“With our Car.Software organization we will create an ideal platform for pioneering software development in the Volkswagen Group. We are stepping up our efforts,” says Christian Senger, Member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen brand responsible for Digital Car & Services, who has Group-wide responsibility for in-vehicle software. “We will increase our competitiveness in the Volkswagen Group by controlling a much larger share of the value creation in the digitalization of our vehicles going forward. For this reason we will also develop software on a cross-brand basis in the Car.Software organization. This will allow us to achieve important synergies and economies of scale for all brands.”
But currently, there is still a number of organizational questions regarding the development of the new unit, for example, the form of company co-determination in the Car.Software organization, the arrangement for switching to the new unit and aspects regarding payment policy. These are to be resolved in close cooperation with the responsible Works Councils over the coming months.
Source: Press Release
