The car industry is increasingly hand in hand with technology. Therefore, the news that Volkswagen and Microsoft will work together in the area of autonomous driving is no longer a big surprise.
In this way, the Volkswagen Group's software division, the Car.Software Organization, will collaborate with Microsoft to develop an autonomous driving platform (ADP) in the cloud at Microsoft Azure.
The aim of this is to help simplify the development processes of autonomous driving technologies and allow for their faster integration into cars. In this way, not only will it be easier to carry out remote software updates, but it will also be able, for example, to make models that are sold with fewer driving assistants able to rely on them in the future.
center to improve
After having watched their brands work individually on autonomous driving technologies for some time, the Volkswagen Group decided to centralize part of these efforts at the Car.Software Organisation.
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Although each brand in the group continues to individually develop parts of the systems (such as the appearance of the software), they work together on basic security functions, such as the detection of obstacles.
According to Dirk Hilgenberg, head of the Car.Software Organization, “over-the-air updates are critical (…) this functionality needs to be there. If we don't have them, we lose ground”.
Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's executive vice president of cloud and artificial intelligence, recalled that remote updates technology is already used in mobile phones and said: “The ability to start programming the vehicle in increasingly richer and more secure ways transforms the experience of having a car”.
Sources: Automotive News Europe, Autocar.