VW Group to rely on Qualcomm chips for automated driving.
News just in that automotive ‘giant’ Volkswagen has just set up a years-long partnership with American computer chip manufacturer Qualcomm to co-develop automated driving technology, with the contract set to run until 2031. This was reported yesterday by German daily newspaper Handelsblatt.
The car giant will use Qualcomm’s system-on-a-chip (SoC), developed specifically for automated driving, across all their brands worldwide starting in 2026, the newspaper said citing company sources.
As you might know or not, Volkswagen is not a small car manufacturer by itself, the company owns the Skoda car company, Spanish car brand SEAT and the big German car brands like Audi and Porsche.
Plus, Volkswagen has major shares in Bugatti, Bentley and Lamborghini. So, this long term partnership with Qualcomm is to ensure that all its partner car brands will have enough computer chips as they move swiftly into automated driving in Europe and also North America where the Japanese and Korean car manufacturers are also pushing hard for their individual brands.
Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess travelled to Qualcomm’s headquarters in San Diego in mid-April, where they agreed to the conditions of the deal, which sources say will cost VW around 1 billion euros, according to Handelsblatt newspaper.
Meanwhile, in case you missed the launch of CES2022, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon Ride Vision System which is an expansion to the product portfolio featuring an open, scalable and modular computer vision software stack built on an industry-leading 4-nanometer (4nm) processing node.
The Vision System-on-Chip (SoC) is integrated with the proven Arriver Vision stack, providing an optimized implementation of front and surround-view cameras for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving (AD).
When combined with the Arriver Drive Policy stack and an already wide range of hardware and software options, the Snapdragon Ride Platform has grown to become one of the most scalable, capable and customizable ADAS/AD solutions available today.
As an integral pillar of the Snapdragon Digital Chassis, the Snapdragon Ride Platform has gained momentum with a growing number of global automakers and Tier 1 suppliers since its launch in January 2020.
So, as the Volkswagen Group works to ensure their computer chip supply, it will be interesting to see what their immediate rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW will be doing to ensure their next generation autonomous vehicles will be equipped with enough computer chips to compete for sales numbers in the coming years.
