In order to strengthen the regional software development strength, on April 28, the Volkswagen Group announced the official establishment of CARIAD's Chinese subsidiary, which is another important measure one year after CARIAD announced its establishment. Evergreen will serve as CEO of CARIAD's China subsidiary and will lead the China team in driving software product development for Chinese consumers, including working with headquarters to develop a unified, scalable new software platform, advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving, and next-generation intelligent connectivity capabilities.
Changqing revealed that the CARIAD China team will cooperate with the group's various brands in China, as well as the three joint venture partners of Volkswagen Anhui, FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen, to provide consumers with software-defined mobility solutions and achieve group scale effect at the software level.
At this stage, CARIAD China team consists of more than 600 employees, Evergreen said that local software talents are the key to enhancing the company's R & D strength, so by the end of 2023, the number of R & D people will double compared to the current scale, of which 90% will be local software talents. In addition, the company will set up R&D teams based on Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Hefei, and gradually build a distributed R&D network covering the whole country.
Sun Wei, chief technology officer of CARIAD's China subsidiary, said that it will continue to accelerate the speed of R&D iteration, create innovative software development concepts, introduce a new technology system for Chinese consumers, and meet the diverse needs of local consumers.
At this stage, CARIAD has made achievements in both bicycle intelligence and vehicle-road collaboration. In the first quarter of 2022, the CARIAD China team selected six applications covering different areas such as advanced driver assistance, intelligent cockpit, remote services and infrastructure, and will further develop these applications in the next 3-6 months to ensure continuous innovation in product line results.
In addition, the intelligent interconnection solution V2X, led by the Chinese team, is also in progress, and three sets of intelligent network functions have been developed, including traffic signal information, hazard warning and hazard information prompt function. The above functions have been applied to the latest Audi brand models in the Chinese market, and more intelligent network V2X scenarios will be put into large-scale mass production as soon as possible.
Evergreen also revealed the future planning of CARIAD, the company will start from three aspects, starting from the three aspects of mass production, high-end, unified and expandable, to build a complete strategic goal.
The first is to plan to launch a mass-produced software platform for MEB platform models and implement software OTA (remote online update) on specific models, in which the Chinese team will lead the OTA work to realize the ID. family series products in the domestic market, and the first update is expected to be realized in the second half of 2022.
At the same time, CARIAD also plans to launch a high-end software platform for the PPE platform, which is planned to be launched in the next two years, which will support the infotainment system and advanced driver assistance system based on the Android open source system, and support some Audi and Porsche brand models OTAs, and the Chinese team is leading the development of China-specific applications of the above two systems.
In addition, according to the plan, CARIAD will also launch a new, unified software platform for all brands of the future group, and support Volkswagen's self-developed operating system VW.OS, and connect to volkswagen cloud VW.AC, this technology stack will be launched around 2025, and pre-equipped with L4 level autonomous driving technology. It is reported that the Chinese team will lead and participate in the design of 70% of the research and development of the new software platform technology stack and product line, and at the same time, the Chinese team will also develop a data backend that meets the data compliance requirements, that is, volkswagen cloud VW.AC, and realize a series of intelligent interconnection services.
By 2030, CARIAD expects the technology stack developed to run on more than 40 million group vehicles worldwide.
With the rapid development of the digitalization process in the Chinese market, it has become normal for foreign investors to set up R&D centers in China, after Hyundai Motor Group, Mercedes-Benz, etc. have set up digital R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai and other places to accelerate their regional software development strength. China, as the world's largest single market for volkswagen groups, also shoulders the most important development responsibilities, and it remains to be seen whether cariad subsidiaries can smoothly lead the digital transformation of volkswagen groups to a new height after the establishment of CARIAD subsidiaries.