Volkswagen will not be satisfied with standard computing power with its autonomous cars. As Reuters (Going through Autoblog) reports, said CEO Herbert Diess Handelsblatt in one interview that VW will design its own high-performance chips for autonomous vehicles. It was about finding the best hardware possible, Diess said – just like Apple and Tesla, the move would give VW “higher competence” in defining its processors.
The automaker did not build the chips itself, but wanted to hold patents. The company’s software division, Cariad, will expand to develop relevant expertise.
Such a move could be the key to VW’s goal of becoming a more agile and tech-savvy brand. Tesla relied on standard NVIDIA hardware for previous cars, but has moved to custom bullets which give it more control over the development of full autonomous driving and autopilot. Likewise, many attribute to Apple increasing performance benefits to its in-house processor design – it can create processors that fit its ideal product strategy instead of shaping phones and computers around someone else’s chip roadmap.
You’ll have to wait a bit to see the results of VW’s design work when the company doesn’t plan to line up self-driving cars. until 2025 or later. If it succeeds, however, it could claim an advantage over its competition that could be limited by the in-car stock technology.
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