A fleet Self-driving Volkswagen ID Buzz Electric cars will be available on Austin, Texasin July, marking the first time autonomous driving check for volkswagen in the U.S. Following a pilot program, Volkswagen wants to keep Austin weird by rolling out its self-driving electric vehicles across the Texas capital by 2026, including downtown, where congestion and traffic traffic at the highest level in the city.
Depending on the results of these tests, Volkswagen speak it will use its fleet of AVs for ride-hailing and deliveries in Austin over the next three years. The test fleet consisted of 10 Volkswagen ID Buzz trucks equipped with a range of sensors (cameras, radars and hoods) from Mobileye, the company with which VW works to develop self-driving vehicles.
Self-driving vehicles are said to be ready for SAE level 4 operate fully autonomously in limited conditions along specific routes or locations. That’s all well and good, except the public roads are unpredictable. And public roads in Texas – for sure Austin — depending on how heavy the traffic is and how the driver behaves differently. So it’s good that VW ID Buzz EVs will always have an operator on board, at least during initial testing that begins in July.
Volkswagen’s partnership with Mobileye is a “strategic shift” from Ford’s self-driving technology company, Argobased on Reutersworked with VW before shutting down. Volkswagen replaced Argo’s Austin hub, as did nearly 100 employees from the defunct company that conducted AV tests in Austin. These resources will form part of a new VW subsidiary that will handle the automaker’s self-driving car rollout in the United States, with headquarters in Belmont, California and Austin, Texas.
EQUAL Reuters Reportedly, part of the reason Austin is such an attractive location for AV testing is because it has some of the least restrictive regulations for self-driving cars. Once testing is underway, Volkswagen plans to expand to “at least four more US cities”.
Maybe San Francisco is one of them, where self-driving cars have caused mayhem and increased traffic in the city of California. In Austin at least, VW’s test program will include real-life drivers to ensure self-driving ID Buzz EVs don’t stall in busy, fast-paced Austin roads or in the way of highways. emergency vehicles or, worse still, cause their own accidents.
