Volkswagen’s much-hyped Venture Trinity technological flagship championed by former Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess is reportedly among the many initiatives below a assessment initiated by new CEO Oliver Blume, who changed Diess in September.
Blume, along with VW model boss Thomas Schäfer, advised workers about plans to “assessment all initiatives and investments and decide whether or not they’re viable” in a memo, a replica of which was seen final week by The Wall Road Journal (subscription required).
And citing individuals acquainted with the matter, The Wall Road Journal additionally reported that the Venture Trinity will probably be delayed and the automotive’s deliberate $2 billion plant to be constructed in Germany doubtlessly canceled.
It was in late 2020 that VW Group first hinted at plans for the so-called Venture Trinity from its VW model to be constructed utilizing extremely automated manufacturing strategies, that are being developed with a view to enhance efficiencies and scale back prices throughout the automaker’s vegetation.
The automotive, which VW stated can be launched in 2026, is anticipated to be a Tesla Mannequin rival based mostly on a extremely standardized platform often known as the SSP (Scalable Techniques Platform). The platform will standardize not solely car constructions but additionally battery cells and software program, and will finally find yourself underpinning a lot of the automobiles throughout the VW Group model portfolio.
Software program, together with self-driving know-how, will even be a defining function of the Venture Trinity, and future automobiles from VW Group. Nevertheless, VW Group’s new Cariad software program improvement crew has struggled to ship, based on The Wall Road Journal.
Solely in October, VW Group additionally stated it deliberate to announce a brand new companion in self-driving know-how when Argo AI, the self-driving know-how startup owned by VW Group along with Ford, shut down.
