Eyal Avidov: New Audi Unit Will Focus on Autonomous Driving#News247WorldPress

Audi has created a new business unit it calls Artemis. Its purpose is to bring electric vehicles equipped with highly automated driving systems and other advanced technology to market faster, according to TechCrunch. Normally, new cars have a 5- to 7-year gestation period that involves preliminary designs, crafting a business case, lining up suppliers, and reconfiguring factories. Audi hopes to speed up that process with Artemis. As usual, anything one part of the Volkswagen organization does transfers to all the other parts of the

first assignment for Artemis will be to “develop a pioneering model for Audi quickly and unbureaucratically,” said Audi head Markus Duesmann in a statement on May 29. The goal is to design and produce what Audi describes as a “highly efficient electric car” as early as 2024.

Readers may be scratching their heads and wondering what Artemis brings to the table that Volkswagen Group didn’t already have, particularly in light of its multi-billion dollar investment in self-driving startup Argo AI last year. A few days ago, VW announced that it and new partner Ford will work on finding new ways of incorporating Argo AI technology in the vehicles they are developing together.

Artemis will be led by Alex Hitzinger, who headed Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID), the self-driving subsidiary that was launched by Audi in 2017 to develop autonomous vehicle technology for the Volkswagen Group. AID has been absorbed into the European headquarters of Argo AI. Artemis will be based at the Audi tech hub at its Ingolstadt headquarters. The expectation is that Artemis will make VW Group a more agile automaker that can bring new and technologically advanced vehicles to market more quickly.

“The obvious question was how we could implement additional high-tech benchmarks without jeopardizing the manageability of existing projects, and at the same time utilize new opportunities in the markets,” Duesmann said. Apparently, adding yet another layer of bureaucracy is just the ticket for Audi’s dilemma.

What does Artemis add that VW doesn’t already have? It’s an excellent question and one with no apparent answer.

(Source: https://cleantechnica.com)