Connect with us
Volkswagen-id-2-unveil Volkswagen-id-2-unveil

News

Volkswagen shakes up leadership amid efforts to optimize vehicle software

Milan Suvajac, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Published

on

Volkswagen recently shook up its leadership positions, appointing several talented individuals into key roles for its future in the smart EV industry. One of those talented leaders is Thomas Ulbrich, who was appointed as the board member in charge of a newly-minted division.

VW created a New Mobility division, which combines its electric vehicle series and software expertise. Ulbrich will head the new department. His work with the ID.3 and ID.4 might prove useful in the New Mobility Division. 

“With the newly created New Mobility division, we’re bundling the strategic action areas of electric mobility and software, thereby increasing our pace of innovation. The goal is to offer our customers top-quality hardware and software that’s very easy to use. I am delighted Thomas Ulbrich is taking on this task,” said says Thomas Schäfer, CEO of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand and Head of the Brand Group Volume.

“As Chief Technology Officer and board member in charge of electric mobility, he has already set important trends for our brand. He saw the ID.301 and ID.402 from sketch to street and made significant contributions to making electric mobility suitable for widespread use. He will now also play an influential role in shaping the far-reaching technological transformation toward digitized mobility at Volkswagen. I wish him a lot of success,” added Schäfer.

Ulbrich is also on CARIAD’s Supervisory Board. VW’s New Mobility Board and CARIAD are collaborating to create automotive software. CARIAD is a subsidiary of VW that aims to build a leading tech stack for the automotive industry. It wants to increase Volkswagen’s in-house software development from 10% to 60% by 2025. 

The VW subsidiary is developing an Automated Driving Platform that includes automated driving functions. It is also working on hardware developments, specifically semiconductors, to ensure the success of CARIAD software. 

Advertisement

In July, CARIAD was streamlined to speed up software development. 

“The time for unanimous decisions is over, because that’s not how we get horsepower on the road,” said Hilgenberg, adding: “We have now established processes in which the roles are clearly distributed and Cariad is trimmed for speed,” said Dirk Hilgenberg, CARIAD CEO.

Know anything about Volkswagen’s software development plans? Contact me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101

Follow us on TikTok! tiktok.com/@teslarati

Advertisement

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

Advertisement
Comments

Investor's Corner

Tesla bear turns bullish for two reasons as stock continues boost

“I think from a trading perspective, it looks very interesting,” Nathan said, citing numerous signs of strength, such as holding its 200-day moving average and holding against its resistance level.

Published

on

Credit: Tesla Manufacturing

A Tesla bear is changing his tune, turning bullish for two reasons as the company’s stock has continued to get a boost over the past month.

Dan Nathan, a notorious skeptic of Tesla shares, said he is changing his tune, at least in the short term, on the company’s stock because of “technicals and sentiment,” believing the company is on track for a strong Q3, but also an investment story that will slowly veer away from its automotive business.

“I think from a trading perspective, it looks very interesting,” Nathan said, citing numerous signs of strength, such as holding its 200-day moving average and holding against its resistance level.

He also said he believes a rally for the stock could continue as it heads into the end of the quarter, especially as the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit is coming to an end at the end of the month.

With that being said, he believes the consensus for Q3 deliveries is “probably low,” as he believes Wall Street is likely underestimating what Tesla will bring to the table on October 1 or 2 when it reports numbers for the quarter.

Tesla shares are already up over five percent today, with gains exceeding nine percent over the past five trading days, and more than fourteen percent in the past month.

While some analysts are looking at the performance of other Mag 7 stocks, movement on rates from the Federal Reserve, and other broader market factors as reasoning for Tesla’s strong performance, it appears some movement could be related to the company’s recent developments instead.

Over the past week, Tesla has made some strides in its Robotaxi program, including a new license to test the platform in the State of Nevada, which we reported on.

Tesla lands regulatory green light for Robotaxi testing in new state

Additionally, the company is riding the tails of the end of the EV tax credit, as inventory, both new and used, is running extremely low, generally speaking. Many markets do not have any vehicles to purchase as of right now, making delivery by September 30 extremely difficult.

However, there has been some adjustments to the guidelines by the IRS, which can be read here:

Tesla set to win big after IRS adjusts EV tax credit rules

Tesla is trading at around $389 at 10:56 a.m. on the East Coast.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla lands regulatory green light for Robotaxi testing in new state

This will be the third state in total where Tesla is operating Robotaxi, following Austin and California.

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla has landed a regulatory green light to test its Robotaxi platform in a new state, less than three months after the ride-hailing service launched in Texas.

Tesla first launched its driverless Robotaxi suite in Austin, Texas, back on June 22. Initially offering rides to a small group of people, Tesla kept things limited, but this was not to be the mentality for very long.

It continued to expand the rider population, the service area, and the vehicle fleet in Austin.

The company also launched rides in the Bay Area, but it does use a person in the driver’s seat to maintain safety. In Austin, the “Safety Monitor” is present in the passenger’s seat during local rides, and in the driver’s seat for routes that involve highway driving.

Tesla is currently testing the Robotaxi platform in other states. We reported that it was testing in Tempe, Arizona, as validation vehicles are traveling around the city in preparation for Robotaxi.

Tesla looks to make a big splash with Robotaxi in a new market

Tesla is also hoping to launch in Florida and New York, as job postings have shown the company’s intention to operate there.

However, it appears it will launch in Nevada before those states, as the company submitted its application to obtain a Testing Registry certification on September 3. It was processed by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles Office of Business Licensing on September 10.

It will then need to self-certify for operations, essentially meaning they will need to comply with various state requirements.

This will be the third state in total where Tesla is operating Robotaxi, following Austin and California.

CEO Elon Musk has stated that he believes Robotaxi will be available to at least half of the U.S. population by the end of the year. Geographically, Tesla will need to make incredible strides over the final four months of the year to achieve this.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla is improving this critical feature in older vehicles

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla is set to improve a critical feature that has not been present in older vehicles with a new update.

Tesla vehicles feature a comprehensive suite of driver assistance features, some of which aid in driving itself, while others support the vehicle’s surroundings.

One of those features is that of Driver Visualization, and with the rollout of a new update, owners of Intel-based Tesla vehicles are receiving an upgrade that will come with a simple software update.

Tesla plans to use Unreal Engine for driver visualization with crazy upgrade

The update will provide new visualizations while Intel-based vehicles are in reverse, a feature that was not previously available, but will be with Software Update 2025.32.2.

The improvement was spotted by Not a Tesla App via TheBeatYT_evil:

Previously, vehicles Tesla built were equipped with Intel-based processors, but newer cars feature the AMD chip, which is capable of rendering these visualizations as they happen. They were capable of visualizations when driving forward, but not in reverse, which is what this change resolves.

It is a good sign for those with Intel-based vehicles, as Tesla seems to be paying attention to what those cars are not capable of and improving them.

This was an undocumented improvement associated with this particular update, so you will not find any mention of it in the release notes that Tesla distributes with each update.

Continue Reading

Trending