VW Dumping $4 Billion into Making its Own Automotive OS and Other Digital Services

Volkswagen is getting into the digital services and products game, saying today that it would invest 3.5 billion Euros (roughly $4 billion) in it by 2025.

Included in the products VW wants to develop are a cloud computing-based platform to better facilitate vehicle-to-vehicle communication. It also wants to work on an operating system that will premier on its EV in 2020.

The operating system, known as “vw.OS” will apparently handle everything in the car, as well as communicating with other cars. VW argues that this will help facilitate autonomous driving functions.

By getting inputs from the hockey-puck sensors and cameras around the car, it will be able to control steering and throttle inputs. The streamlined OS would mean that one brain would be controlling information from all 70 sensors and controllers in its cars.

The company also argues that this will simplify over-the-air updates, since it won’t have to deal with a third party software developer.

VW also announced today that it will be starting an electric car-sharing platform called “We Share” in Berlin in mid-2019.

The car sharing company will eventually roll out into other markets (including the US and Canada).

VWs will also have other apps under the We banner. These will include in-car package delivery, fuel-price tracking, electronic payment and more. From these services, VW hopes to generate more than 1 billion euros in revenue per year, by 2025.

“We will be a device and software company,” Michael Jost, the VW brand’s strategy chief, said at a press conference. “To deal with this development, we need to reinvent the automobile.”

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