The two industrial giants continue to collaborate closely in order to create an automated driving platform for the development of autonomous driving functions as soon as possible.

Automotive progress is now a matter that must be followed day by day. It seems yesterday that the cars were still with halogen bulbs and the shape was quite square. The car is currently being brought to a complex system of tools and software that are truly unthinkable if we compare it to just 10 or 15 years ago.

The concept of autonomous driving is something that has been heard for some time now, but which has not yet been actualized in normal life. A whole series of structures and sensors still need to be perfected, as well as the integration of the car within an important infrastructure system.

The Volkswagen group has however continuing to strengthen its capabilities to develop automated driving solutions thanks to the group's internal company. The latter will collaborate with Microsoft in order to build a Cloud-based automated driving platform on Microsoft Azure, in order to leverage the capabilities to process data in order to provide increasingly faster automated driving experiences on a global scale.

But why develop an increasingly advanced form of automated driving?

We have to think about a very simple fact. The human eye and the ability to react to unexpected events is very good, but in certain cases it is not excellent. In fact, the man is not always perfectly fit and in fact it can happen to drive a little tired and lost in thought.

If innumerable improvements have been developed in recent years with regard to ADAS, or assisted driving aids, it is clear that the next step is to develop 100% automated driving. This will improve passenger safety and also reduce congestion on the road arteries.

Very often the traffic is produced by a lack of experience or a situation of excessive stress of the people who drive. If all of this could be avoided, the computer would clearly be more efficient in managing the fastest route out of a traffic jam.

The collaboration with Microsoft and Volkswagen therefore aims at developing an integrated system for a more fluid mobility of tomorrow. Thanks to the computer knowledge of Microsoft and the knowledge of the displacements of the kilometers traveled through a database of the Volkswagen group, it is possible to create a very precise development method.

Collaboration is undoubtedly also important in terms of the portfolio. By 2025, the Volkswagen group will invest around 27 billion euros in digitization and increase the internal development of car software by 10 to 60% in terms of percentage of resources.

The first field trials should be up and running already this year, while the production launch is scheduled for 2022 . We will therefore try to progressively increase the automated driving systems on cars as early as next year.

Clearly it will not be one day alone to define the epochal turning point of autonomous driving, but it will be the progressive advancement phase that will dictate the times for which the man will leave the steering wheel in the hands of the computer.

credit photo Volkswagen media press
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