Volkswagen targets no crashes by 2050

The next generation of Volkswagen’s driver-assistance software could be capable of avoiding all car crashes, Volkswagen’s head of strategy has said.

"We want to have no more accidents by 2050," Michael Jost said to journalists in Berlin.

Jost anticipated that continual improvements to Volkswagen’s new operating system, which will be launched in the Volkswagen ID.3 electric car (EV), will be continually improved by more refined algorithms.

"How quickly can data and algorithms improve? Our customers should benefit from deep learning every week, and every day,” Jost claimed.

“We are moving from being a device company to being a software company," he said.

The Volkswagen brand alone anticipates selling 1.5 million EVs by 2025, while the Volkswagen Group (including Audi, Seat, Skoda, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti) will crank out 75 new EVs over the next nine years.

The higher-end Volkswagen models will already be equipped with a full sensor suite, including LiDars, radars, analogue cameras and ultra-sonic sensors and continually upgrading the software could make them function at their peak.

Jost insisted the ID.3’s launch timeline has not changed, despite media reports of glitches in its software, though the attack of the Coronavirus/Covid-19 could push it back.

"We are not yet at 100 per cent," Volkswagen’s board member for electromobility, Thomas Ulbrich, admitted.

"It is normal that there are still technical tasks to be done shortly before market launch."

Its pricing will be on a par with Volkswagen’s own combustion-engined cars, landing from only €24,000 in Germany after green subsidies have been subtracted.

The Volkswagen ID.3 (and ID.4 SUV) won't be seen in Australia until 2022.