The Volkswagen ID.Buzz just debuted in the United States this week, but there were already 15 units circulating on the other side of the Atlantic. And the automaker’s autonomous driving subsidiary uses ID.Buzz in its test fleet. autonomous driving in Tesla’s hometown of Austin, where it plans to offer commercial service by the end of 2026.
“People here are curious to see our vehicles circulating,” afirma Katrin Lohmannresponsible for Volkswagen Autonomous Driving Mobility & Transport (AMDT). That is if they manage to overcome some of the challenges that they still have to face, among them that of the local charging network, clearly insufficient according to the brand itself.
Volkswagen will not have its own robotaxis service
The Volkswagen ID.Buzz will arrive in U.S. dealerships next month, but for now, the European version of the ID.Buzz has given Volkswagen’s autonomous driving program visibility in a city where other robotaxi competitors will be subsidiary Waymo. Google, Amazon’s Zoox, and upstart Avride Inc.
None of them have launched a commercial driverless service open to the public. Waymo will probably be the first. It plans to start in early 2025 through the Uber application in a 60 km2 area of the city.
While Waymo operates its own ride-sharing service while also deploying vehicles with Uber, Volkswagen ADMT intends to place cars in existing services instead of starting your own. That is, Volkswagen’s initial objective is to sell autonomous cars, not to set up its own robotaxi service.
“We don’t see the need to go in that direction right now,” Lohmann said. “But that could change over time.” In any case, to make ID.Buzz attractive to companies, the brand is making the transition to second generation of ID.Buzz robotaxiswhich incorporate a new sensor configuration and a new lidar supplier.
These vehicles also incorporate a new generation autonomous driving system resulting from Volkswagen’s collaboration with Mobileye. It will use Mobileye’s EyeQ6 system on a chip.
“That transition is really happening, and this will be one of our major milestones over the next year,” Lohmann said. “There are some functionalities in complex scenarios that only the EyeQ6 allows.”
Compared to a hypothetical Tesla Cybercab, Volkswagen’s proposal seems on paper to be more relevant by offering more seats on board and, above all, a Lidar and radar based technology in theory more capable than Tesla’s that rests solely on the cameras. However, Volkswagen is facing an unexpected challenge in Austin: that of recharging its car batteries.
The Unexpected Challenge of Charging Electric Cars: Texas’ Outdated Power Grid
The Volkswagen warehouse in Austin has more than a dozen charging stations exclusive for ADMT vehicles. Volkswagen will add more, but “the network is not powerful enough at our center to actually supply us with power for a larger fleet as well as fast charging,” Lohmann said. Volkswagen ADMT is working with its electricity supplier to improve performance ahead of its planned launch in 2026.
And it is that the texas power gridindependent of the rest of the United States grid (except for a few low-voltage connections), is notoriously outdated. In Texas, just over half of the energy comes from thermal plants fueled by natural gas and the other approximately 25% comes from wind turbines.
Without storage systems or alternative generation or the possibility of importing energy from neighboring states, the grid collapses more easily than others. In winter 2021, more than 4.5 million homes were without electricity. In the summer of 2022, Tesla recommended not charging their cars in Texas during what they considered a “heat wave.” Energy consumption skyrocketed and they once again approached the risk of collapse.
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Source: www.motorpasion.com
