Volkswagen in talks with rivals on making operating system for car of the future

Volkswagen is in talks with rival carmakers about developing an operating system for the car of the future, Christian Senger, its board member responsible for digital services and software, said.

With the advent of autonomous driving, carmakers have been forced to link up radar, camera and ultrasonic sensors and connect them to braking and steering components, something which requires thousands of lines of software code.

“There is a race to create automotive operating systems. We are seeing that many non-automotive players are building up competence in this area,” Senger told Reuters.

“In future there will likely be fewer automotive operating systems than carmakers,” Senger explained.

“The operating system is not something that we will control on our own. We will define its core and then quickly include open-source components, to create standards. This will create opportunities for partnerships,” Senger said.

In January, Volkswagen launched Car.Software, an independent unit responsible for developing lines of code, with around 3,000 digital experts and a budget of more than 7 billion euros ($7.8 billion). By 2025 it wants to have more than 10,000 software experts.

Via Reuters