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Volkswagen Doubles Up on Autonomous Cars: Street Ready by 2021

Volkswagen is one of the companies that have gone through the hastiest of transformations. Think about what it was doing two and a half years ago, and look at it now.
Volkswagen Sedric Concept 1 photo
Photo: Guido Ten Brink/SB-Medien
If today's Volkswagen were to meet with pre-September 2015 Volkswagen, the two would nearly have nothing to talk about. Gone are the TDI ambitions - best reflected by Audi's venture into endurance racing - and in came the powertrain electrification and the development of autonomous technology.

Volkswagen is still all talk, no show, but considering how much its mouth is moving lately, it's impossible to think it won't act on the promises it makes. At this year's Frankfurt Motor Show, the company showed countless electric concepts (like the VW I.D. Crozz II and the Skoda Mission E), but it also touched heavily on autonomous driving with the likes of the Audi Aicon and Elaine concepts.

The Volkswagen Group can't afford to be left behind by the new market trends because even though it managed to get out of the Dieselgate scandal in one piece, it's still quite vulnerable. That's why all brands are chipping in for a homogeneous strategy that would hopefully bring VW back on top in the shortest time possible.

Up to this point, it felt like EVs were the highest on the company's agenda, but now self-driving vehicles are starting to catch up. Earlier this year at the Geneva Motor Show, Volkswagen introduced the Sedric Concept (short for "self-driving car") - a mostly featureless autonomous pod that looks like every other "vehicle of the future" we've seen from the rest of the manufacturers.

The Sedric was present once again in Frankfurt, and this time it came accompanied by a promise made by the Group's CEO, Matthias Mueller. The man entrusted to guide Volkswagen out of the Dieselgate scandal said that we should expect to see a fleet of vehicles of various uses based on Sedric roam freely on the streets, and it could happen as soon as 2021.

"Our team is already working on ideas for a whole Sedric family of fully autonomous vehicles for the city, for luxurious long-range mobility, through self-driving delivery vans and heavy commercial trucks," he said while in Frankfurt, quoted by Automotive News.

The prototypes will soon begin testing at the company's plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. There, they will be used to transport employees around, though we expect it will be done on an opt-in basis. The last thing Volkswagen needs now is to be accused of making using its employees as lab rats in case anything goes wrong.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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