From January 1, 2020, Volkswagen’s Car.Software arm will run as an independent unit of around 3,000 digital experts who will be tasked with developing car software and digital ecosystems within the VW Group. The organization will be based at Audi Electronics Venture and will have offices in Berlin, Bochum, Stuttgart and Wolfsburg, as well as in Seattle in the USA and Beijing in China.
By 2025, the group plans to have invested €7bn (US$7.8bn) in the project and have a 10,000-strong workforce of software experts from VW, Porsche, and Audi delivering pioneering developments. At the moment, VW’s in-house share of software development is only 10% but the new organization will manage at least 60% of the connected car and device platforms within five years. The arm will also establish a uniform software architecture for departments including intelligent body and cockpit; automated driving; vehicle motion and energy; and digital business and mobility services.
“We will create an ideal platform for pioneering software development in the Volkswagen Group,” said Christian Senger, VW management board member responsible for in-vehicle software services. “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. 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.”
“We are creating clear structures and building up expertise in areas that will be important in the future,” added HR board management member Gunnar Kilian. “Together with employee representatives, we have agreed that the new Car.Software organization will have competitive working conditions based on collective bargaining agreements. These conditions will reflect both the future orientation and challenges of the software industry as well as our attractiveness as an employer.”
