Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and MOIA have shown possible new uses being created through the development of self-driving vehicles at the ITS World Congress in Hamburg. Industry visitors took their place on comfortable MOIA seats in a model of the ID.BUZZ AD1 in a standard shuttle configuration and experience on the screen how it is possible to organise autonomous transport of people and goods.
“We see ourselves as the cities’ partners and want with these mobility services to make an important contribution to improving the transport offering and road safety“, explained VWCV Management Board Member Michael Obrowski to Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher. It is in his city that from 2025 self-driving shuttles from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and MOIA will go into use for the first time anywhere in the world. Many major cities in Europe and the USA are then set to follow.
The Hamburg ITS is precisely the right stage for mobility solutions geared to an international market. The World Congress sees itself as the most important international industry event in the area of intelligent transport systems and services. It is an event where specialists come together from the IT, mobility and logistics sectors, as well as from politics and trade associations. The main themes include automated, cooperative and connected mobility: i.e, the transition from driver to autonomous driving.
For the Volkswagen Group, autonomous driving is a key technology that makes new mobility solutions possible and increases road safety. Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, MOIA and US technology company ARGO AI, which developed the self-driving system, are already trialling their autonomous ride-pooling system in a pilot project in Hamburg. Using an interactive simulation, MOIA is showing on its stand in hall 5 the contribution that autonomous ride-pooling in large fleets can make in support of the switch to alternative forms of mobility. “MOIA is currently on the road with several hundred vehicles. If the fleet is increased to 1,000 or more, the full advantages of ride-pooling come to the fore. The mobility offering for users increases, individual transport goes down, local public transport benefits“, says MOIA CEO Robert Henrich.
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and MOIA see themselves as the cities’ partners. With its standard ride-pooling service, MOIA is supplementing local public transport in Hamburg. During the lockdown, MOIA additionally implemented a night service for the city authority, transporting key workers to their places of work in the period from midnight to 6 a.m.
Another core topic is the systematic switch to e-mobility. Elli is creating a comprehensive energy ecosystem around the vehicle, from wall boxes to digital services. At ITS, the Group company will also demonstrate how electric vehicles are becoming part of the energy system as mobile storage devices through the use of high-voltage batteries. Bidirectional charging is also strengthening the driving role of e-mobility for the energy transition: self-generated electricity from renewable energy sources can be stored in the vehicle and fed back into the house as needed. Not only does this make customers less dependent on the public power grid, it also saves costs and CO2. The brands of the Volkswagen Group will likely offer this technology from 2022 onwards in models based on the MEB modular electric drive matrix.
Another core topic is the systematic switch to e-mobility. Elli is creating a comprehensive energy ecosystem around the vehicle, from wall boxes to digital services. At ITS, the Group company will also demonstrate how electric vehicles are becoming part of the energy system as mobile storage devices through the use of high-voltage batteries. Bidirectional charging is also strengthening the driving role of e-mobility for the energy transition: self-generated electricity from renewable energy sources can be stored in the vehicle and fed back into the house as needed. Not only does this make customers less dependent on the public power grid, it also saves costs and CO2. The brands of the Volkswagen Group will likely offer this technology from 2022 onwards in models based on the MEB modular electric drive matrix.
Source: Volkswagen
