HEFEI, China, August 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A Volkswagen Group AV MaaS fleet was unveiled to perform the pilot project in Hefei's bustling Haiheng District, a community with 400,000 inhabitants, schools, hospitals, shopping malls, living compounds, and 80-km urban roads in mixed traffic with vehicle-to-infrastructure scenarios. Autonomous driving technology, premium BEV SUV, intelligent fleet operation, user friendliness, and personalized service content ecosystem were introduced as "5 Layers" to the success of the project.
Well aware of the fact that AD technology alone cannot offer user a comfortable ride, the legacy automaker is seeking to get the best of its ability to integrate the full scope of technologies, the hardware and software, and services into tech-driven and customer-oriented mobility solutions.
"Together with electrification and digitalization, autonomous driving plays a fundamental role in Volkswagen Group strategy. Autonomous driving will change the world of mobility." Mr. Alexander Hitzinger, head of Volkswagen Group Autonomous Driving stresses the undisputedly critical role of AD to Volkswagen's transformative story, "The way we're going to deliver mobility to the masses will change dramatically in the future as technology changes faster than ever before. In a broader sense, this project helps us to unify what matters for you to bring the new generation of the people's car to you. In the development and deployment of this technology, China will play a particularly important role."
"This is our first-ever pilot project in China in the aspiration to link up the automotive and electrical and digital worlds to the benefit of customers, company and society alike," Mr. Weiming Soh, the executive vice president of Volkswagen Group China introduced. "By defining 5 layers and unifying the solutions, we build up our autonomous driving mobility service capabilities that deliver on people's expectations of mobility: safety, comfort and efficiency. We carry forward the group's birth-mission of building 'people's car' and bringing our heritage into the future."
Fittingly, the event had foregone the glitters and flashy performance, instead, the group had decided to show the experience of the future as easy, comfortable and with a touch of premium quality. Audi e-tron, the group's premium BEV SUV that the fleet is composed of, holds the automaker's hallmark of quality and comfort. Despite being in "testing phase", there is no visible change in the interior to suggest any compromise to ride quality and trunk space. According to the group's engineers for the project, the group aims to provide a well-rounded experience from the testing phase, which includes full autonomous journeys and in-car location-based recommendation services.
The initiated new investment into "new infrastructure" including 5G networks, data centers and smart transportation by China, now prioritized at the national level, is expected to push the progress in smart mobility even further. With competitiveness of strong diversified brand portfolios, collectively covering all segments with state-of-the-art products and technologies, the legacy automaker is seeking to ensure its advantage in one of the world's biggest markets for e-mobility along with the rapid industrial development.
