VW has been announcing the development of its own vehicle software for years. It always stuck. In the meantime, however, parts of “VW.OS 2.0” are being installed in the first vehicles.
Individual parts of Volkswagen’s own car operating system, which has been delayed overall, are now in use in some of the new Group models. “We already have some elements of the later VW.OS in the current vehicle launches for the new generation of Audi and Porsche models,” said Thomas Fleischmann, head of a software team for the so-called system.
“We are already integrating such elements into the new premium architecture 1.2.” These are, for example, components for program updates, cloud interfaces or basic technical diagnostic functions. “Of course, it’s not just about the comprehensive system,” emphasized Fleischmann. The development of large-scale self-created automotive software is a key future area at VW.
The Cariad division responsible had to contend with start-up problems, and the issue turned out to be much more complex than initially assumed. The long-term goal of a “scalable” system for all cars from the largest European car group across different equipment levels is far from being achieved. The ex-VW CEO Herbert Diess, who resigned on September 1, had planned to launch a basic modular system for fully digitized electric vehicles (“Scalable Systems Platform”/SSP) from 2026.
However, because there were delays and coordination difficulties at earlier stages of development, displeasure grew – especially among the influential subsidiaries Porsche and Audi, who demanded that their luxury class customers soon get new systems in their cars. The people from Stuttgart and Ingolstadt had warned several times not to be able to wait until the completely new program version 2.0 was completed. Their software is therefore now being pursued as version 1.2, initially in parallel with the cross-brand concept.
“The current status is that we are already running a product with core features for the uniform platform 2.0 and are further developing this overall system,” explained Fleischmann. “However, there are definitely selected components that can also be used in a 1.1 or 1.2 architecture and will lead to improvements there. We are continuing to work on expanding coverage to the entire vehicle architecture and all control units in the future.”
