Volkswagen is partnering the Silicon Valley company headed by Google’s former self-driving chief Chris Urmson on autonomous car research, underscoring how traditional carmakers are looking to the technology industry to help them adapt to a self-driving future.
Volkswagen is preparing to launch self-driving taxi fleets in multiple cities in 2021 and plans to launch dozens of autonomous test vehicles on the road this year in conjunction with Aurora. By 2020, it hopes to have thousands of vehicles being tested in 2020, according to chief digital officer Johann Jungwirth.
The carmaker plans to spend more than €34bn on self-driving and electric vehicle research over the next five years, but did not disclose any financial details of the Aurora deal.
The deal will focus on developing a fleet of self-driving Volkswagen vehicles that can be summoned on-demand and provide a transportation service which the company hopes will eventually be offered all over the world.
By partnering with Aurora, the German company has thrown its hat in with one of Silicon Valley’s most-high profile and secretive groups led by a pioneer of self-driving research.
Mr Urmson, who left Alphabet in 2016, co-founded Aurora last year along with Tesla’s former autopilot chief Sterling Anderson, and robotics professor Drew Bagnell, previously a founder of Uber’s self-driving car unit.
Along with the Volkswagen deal, Aurora also announced a partnership on Thursday with
Hyundai. The South Korean automaker is set to debut a new hydrogen fuel cell vehicle next week that it believes will be well suited for autonomous driving down the road.