First shown at last year’s CES in Las Vegas, the Volkswagen Budd-e Concept is getting ready to give some pointers to the brand’s recently announced ride-sharing autonomous vehicle.
Set to launch under the MOIA name, VW’s answer to Uber and Lyft is said to be an electric people carrier with seating for up to eight passengers, and will use the aforementioned study for inspiration, as AutoNews reports.
“The vehicle will be a little different from the electric Budd-e minivan concept unveiled by VW at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, but it will use some of its ideas, including always-on wireless internet connection“, said the MOIA’s CEO, Ole Harms. “MOIA’s ultimate goal is to run the electric vehicle without a driver, and it expects to be running autonomous prototypes by 2019. The vehicle itself is expected by then, but we’re likely to see a concept in 2017“, the VW official added.
Besides working on a self-driving car, Volkswagen is also forming solid relationships with local authorities, with the ultimate goal being the identification of any weakness in the public transport network. The plan is to have the production version of the vehicle slot between a taxi and a bus, capable of running along busy routes and stopping where it is needed, but if there is no MOIA available, then the brand could redirect the order to another ride-sharing company.
Germany’s Hamburg is seen as a possible test field for self-driving cars, and findings from this partnership will be eventually incorporated in other projects across Europe.
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