VW begins autonomous driving validation

VOLKSWAGEN Commercial Vehicles has commenced autonomous driving tests with passengers in Munich this week.

Representatives from government, public authorities and the business world joined journalists to sample the self-driving technology on public roads, the trial pairing VW’s ID.Buzz with ridesharing provider MOIA.

VW says it is concurrently testing autonomous driving technology in Europe and North America on public roads and in as many traffic scenarios as possible to ensure production readiness.

“Expanding our autonomous vehicle program to North America is the next step in our global strategic roadmap and the result of a long-term investment,” explained Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles head of autonomous driving development, Christian Senger.

“This will help us to test, validate and refine the technology on American roads as well.”

Mr Senger said the aim of the testing is to expand both the establishment of commercially available transport services and the varied mobility portfolio of the Volkswagen Group.

The growing test fleet, which in part uses technology developed by self-driving technology company, Mobileye, is tasked with collecting data over many kilometres of public roads and in a variety of driving and weather conditions to ensure the system meets the SAE standard for Level 4 autonomous driving.

Vehicles are equipped with camera, radar and lidar technology and are “accompanied” by a “supervising human driver at all times” while on test. Volkswagen says that once the system passes muster, it will be offered in “large quantities” to fulfil the needs of “growing mobility and transport requirements”.

As reported by GoAuto last year, Volkswagen is preparing to take on Tesla in the realm of autonomous driving with both commercial and passenger offerings boasting highly automated self-driving capabilities.

Its Trinity project is perhaps one of the better known of its kind and will be “technically ready for Level 4 autonomy” when it is released at the start of 2026.

“We are using our economies of scale to make autonomous driving available to many people and to build a learning neural network,” said Volkswagen brand chief executive, Ralf Brandstätter.

“In this way, we are creating the conditions for the continuous exchange of data from our vehicle fleet – for example, on the traffic situation, on obstacles or on accidents.

“Trinity therefore gives people time and saves them stress. After a long highway trip, you arrive at your destination relaxed because you have been driven by a ‘chauffeur’ to your vacation or to your home after work.

“Trinity therefore becomes a kind of 'time machine' for our customers.”

As well as benefitting customers, Mr Brandstätter said series production of the Trinity would also see the Group’s Wolfsburg plant become something of a showcase for state-of-the-art, intelligent and fully networked production processes.

“We will completely rethink the way we build cars and introduce revolutionary approaches. Digitalisation, automation, and lightweight construction play an important role here,” he added.

Future vehicle models such as Trinity will be produced with considerably fewer variants, and the hardware will be largely standardised.

The cars will then have virtually everything on board and customers will be able to activate desired functions ‘on-demand’ at any time via the digital ecosystem in the car. This will significantly reduce complexity in production.

By developing the automobile into a software-based product, Volkswagen is creating the conditions for new, data-based business models.

Entry barriers to individual mobility are to be lowered while at the same time offering even more attractive usage packages. Volkswagen intends to generate additional revenue in the usage phase – for charging and energy services, for software-based functions that customers can book as needed, or for automated driving.

“In the future, the individual configuration of the vehicle will no longer be determined by the hardware at the time of purchase. Instead, customers will be able to add functions on demand at any time via the digital ecosystem in the car,” said Mr Brandstätter.

Trinity unashamedly targets the Tesla Model 3 with VW diligently working on Project Trinity to ensure is meets the Tesla challenge on all fronts including price.