Two years ago, when Big Tech first started deploying self-driving cars to San Francisco, the company encountered something unusual – popular resistance.
Angry residents will help Traffic coneand the head of the city fire department himself will Regularly malignant They are dangerous nuisances. Even today, protesters have caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in a recent civil unrest in Los Angeles Waymo Automobile.
An old economy company ready to enter the automatic ride space takes a completely different approach when it launches next year. Volkswagen in Germany is increasingly collateral damage caused by Silicon Valley’s speed of action and breakthrough mentality.
“Our approach is different – we deliberately become partners based on existing infrastructure,” Sascha Meyer, executive of Volkswagen Group, told 2018 wealth During the test drive of its robot. “We believe that the key point of becoming social acceptance is to be a service provider, precisely because we are not competing with systems that are already in place.”
This week, Volkswagen revealed a series of production versions of its automatic ride cab based on its retro-style Volkswagen ID. Hum EV microorganisms. Packed with the necessary fleet management software and digital customer booking platform, it hopes to provide a turnkey solution for local transport authorities and other commercial fleets that can easily be integrated into their services.
And Waymo or Tesla Plans to compete with existing providers, and the German automaker aims to be the same partner in gloves as the community they want to help.
A huge increase is expected to be used for autonomous rides over the next 10 years
Even if the initial about 500 cars won’t be deployed to Uber in Los Angeles for you next year, Volkswagen believes the race to win market share has just begun.
It firmly believes there will be enough demand to attract €450 billion of revenue of €350 billion of €450 billion McKinsey By 2035, automatic ride service programs in North America and Europe. This is a growth worth more than half a trillion dollars over the next 10 years.
Meyer operates Moia, a mobile services subsidiary of Volkswagen Group, which will offer a high-tech version of zero-launch Volkswagen ID. Buzz Electric Minivan is done around its backend software ecosystem.
wealth Due to the busy streets of Hamburg, Robotaxi always had the opportunity to ride with Meyer while driving the safe driver behind the wheel. In Germany’s second largest city, Volkswagen has quietly tested the technology for several years, thanks to the active support of city officials.
European public transport authorities have difficulty shifting
Volkswagen’s white label service keeps everything customers need to do, is to slap the logo on the vehicle and decorate the front end facing customers in their respective corporate identities and be ready to go.
The group’s best market strategy is largely incorporated into the public transport authorities, an approach that is influenced by European roots. The large mass transport networks of these major national and municipal companies have a rich mass transport network that plays a role in urban, suburban and former urban mobility, making them difficult to replace.
Taking the BVG Administration, which operates in Berlin, the capital of Germany, as an example, Volkswagen Group has already joined it signLetter of intent. 3 million people Putting their daily transportation commissions requires high-end buses, trams, subways and commuter trains every day in larger metropolitan areas. The adoption of BVG-branded robots included in their services is much faster than the mass competition.
Cooperate with natural cooperation for automakers to work with state officials
In a sense, Volkswagen’s partnership in the market is a natural fit. Automakers have decades of experience working closely with regulators from various state and federal agencies to ensure their cars meet traffic safety and environmental standards.
However, in Silicon Valley, regulators are often suspected, and this is the most exciting enemy. The crash around Robotaxi developer Cruise proves this: After fate October 2023 In the accident in San Francisco, this tech startup deliberately Keep key information What to smash from crash investigators believe Placed in it by California Just a few weeks ago.
When cruise owner General Motors Found that it acted quickly Deputy CEObut by then it was too late and reputational losses had already been caused. Cruise stops all operations and GM quit Automatic ride racing in December.
Ford, rival to Crosstown, has already give up Even earlier, only Volkswagen and modernthrough it Action subsidiarystill exists Traditional automotive industry. The rest are AI technology companies such as Waymo, Tesla, Amazon Subsidiaries Zamx And their foreign equivalent products, such as Baidu in China and the UK in the road.
Not the winner to the full market
Of course, Meyer knew there was a lead in the game and they wouldn’t hand over it voluntarily.
He told wealth.
Then there is Tesla, which is preparing to launch its own pilot in Austin at launch on Sunday. Although Meyer easily admits that until Tesla graduated from a full commercial robot service, he doesn’t think anything will be lost.
First, none of Europe appeared, and this market is known for its greater risk to unproven technologies and to rapidly regulate threats to public safety. Tesla’s automatic fully autonomous driving (FSD) feature that will allow its robots to blend with the necessary intelligence and has not been approved for use anywhere on the African continent. In fact, it can’t even be used as a senior driver assistance.
This provides Volkswagen with enough opportunity to make at least 10,000 Robotaxi vehicles available. And, even if Waymo and Tesla do retain the lead when Volkswagen is ready, Meyer believes that the community will require a degree of healthy competition among auto-ride providers to ensure the best service is available at a low cost.
“If there is a monopoly and no one, it wouldn’t be very happy even in the United States,” he said. “We don’t think it will be a winner market.”
