Bosch has signed an agreement with Cariad, a Volkswagen Group subsidiary, to design an engineering platform for an SAE Level 4 autonomous driving system. The self-driving suite should become available for purchase with VW production cars next year.
At first, the company will develop a Level 2 solution that will enable drivers to take hands off the steering wheel briefly under certain conditions. Then the engineering team will attempt to achieve autonomy levels 3 and 4, however, there are no availability dates associated with the later goal. The Level 2 should become available in 2023 or 2024, the company says.
All Volkswagen Group vehicles representing all market segments will be able to utilize this new tech. Whether any models will receive it on a priority basis remains unannounced.
Going into specifics, Cariad says it will develop a special software for its self-driving tech, an operating system for cars, and a cloud-based platform.